L_
127013
THE ARABS
BOOKS BY
BERTRAM THOMAS
THE ARABS
ARABIA FELIX
ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS IN ARABIA
BERTRAM THOMAS.
(By courtesy of the artist, Str Walter Russell R A )
THE LIFE STORY OF A PEOPLE WHO HAVE
LEFT THEIR DEEP IMPRESS ON THE WORLD
By
BERTRAM THOMAS
O.B.E. (MiL) : Ph.D. (Cantab) : DXitt. (hon.)
Bristol: D,Sc. (hon.) Acadia, Nova Scotia
For some time Political Officer Mesopotamia: Assistant British
Representative, Trans-Jordan: Prime Minister
to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman
Gold medallist of the Royal Geographical Society:
the Royal Geographical Society of Antwerp: the
Geographical Society of New 'York: the Royal
Geographical Society of Scotland: and
Burton Memorial medallist of the
Royal Asiatic Society
DOUBLEDAY, DORAN AND CO., INC.
Garden City, New York
1937
, GARDEN CITY, N. Y,, U. S. A.
COPYRIGHT, 1937
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST EDITION
FOREWORD
FIRST I would acknowledge my indebtedness to ex-
President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University,
at whose invitation I was privileged, last year, to deliver
the Lowell Lectures on 'The Arabs 7 at the Lowell Insti-
tute, Boston. The researches necessary for those lectures,
following fourteen years residence in many Arab countries,
prompted this setting forth, in a single volume, of a life
story of the Arab people, a story of wide scope and varied
interest for so small a compass, attempting as it does an
outline of their history, religion, medieval civilization and
later-day politics. In these pages my address is to the
general reader.
Orientalist authorities in many fields of learning have
been freely drawn upon, and this brings me to another
acknowledgment of deep obligation. A list of such authors
and their works forms a brief selected bibliography at the
end of the book.
The index I owe to my wife's devotion and many of the
illustrations to the kindness of friends whose names are
acknowledged in appropriate places. Finally, the help of
[v]
FOREWORD
those who have been so good as to read through my manu-
script and make valuable suggestions Professor Mar-
goliouth, Professor Gibb, Mr Mahmood Zada, Mrs
D. L. R. Lorimer and Sir Percy Cox is gratefully re-
membered. The viewpoints are not always theirs, of
course, but my own.
BERTRAM THOMAS
Christmas 1936
THE WHITE FRIARS
SANDWICH
KENT
[vi]
CONTENTS
Foreword
PART ONE
THE RISE
I The Arabs of Antiquity 3
II The Prophet Muhammad 27
III Arab World Conquest Eastwards 65
IV Arab World Conquest Westwards 93
PART TWO
ARAB CIVILIZATION
V The Medieval State and Its Society 1 1 1
VI The Arts 141
VII The Sciences 168
PART THREE
THE DECLINE
VIII Disintegration and Decline 195
IX The Arabs of Arabia 221
X Rise of the West : Eastern Repercussions 252
[vii]
CONTENTS
PART FOUR
REVIVAL
XI The Arabs and the World War 275
XII Palestine 293
Epilogue 321
APPENDIX
Racial Origins of the Arabs 337
Bibliography 347
Index 353
[ viii ]
ILLUSTRATIONS
Bertram Thomas Frontispiece
Facing page
Tapping a Frankincense Bush 6
A Desert Scene 6
Ancient South Arabian Inscription 22
The Oldest Known Islamic Monument
Showing Early Arabic Character 26
Postures of Prayer 65
The Courtyard of Al Azhar Mosque 142
The Tomb Mosque of Sultan Barquq 148
The Sanctuary Screen and Lamp of
Sultan Barquq Mosque 150
A Glass Lamp of Fourteenth Century 158
King Ibn Sa'ud 238
A Small Arab Dhow on the Pearling Banks 242
A Water-Hole in the Desert 242
A Trans-Jordan Desert Policeman 246
Coffee Country in the Yemen 246
A Beduin Group 250
A Group of Arab Townsmen 250
[ix]
ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing page
The Late King Faisal 290
A Palestine Arab 294
A Palestine Jew 294
Jews and Arabs at Work Together 302
An Arab School 322
Arab Racial Types : Hamitic Characters 342
Arab Racial Types : Mediterranean Characters 342
Arab Racial Types : Armenoid Characters 342
MAPS
Arabia before Muhammad 10
Past and Present Political Divisions of Arabia 224
Arab States under Turkish Dominion
before the War 276
Arab World Conquests, Seventh to
Eighth Centuries End of Book
Part One
THE RISE
CHAPTER I
The Arabs of Antiquity
To bear with a valiant front the full brunt of every stroke
and onset of Fate, were still the fairest and best of things.
FROM AN ANCIENT ARABIAN POEM.
THE DAWN of history Arabia formed a wedge of
semibarbarism between Egypt and Sumer. It was a barren,
forbidding, undesirable land, a natural barrier, in itself,
to the intrusion of early civilized man. So deficient in
rains was it that not a single river was sustained through-
out its great length and breadth. Sharp naked mountains
rose grimly from bleak uplifted plateaux, and wide
horizons of rolling sands made up its greater part. By
day a merciless sun beat down upon these wildernesses,
and scorching winds swept across them; it was a brown
and well-nigh treeless land where Nature with niggard
hand withheld even decent shade and shelter, a cruel
environment where only a brave, a cunning and a hardy
race of men could survive. Its inhabitants were wild
nomadic peoples who, surrounded by hardships, must
display endurance and fortitude and, pressed by hunger,
develop qualities of aggression and ferocity. Clans of
kinsmen grew into tribes, but fundamentally a fierce
individualism and an all-embracing distrust were their
[3]
THE ARABS
chief characteristics. Of beasts useful to man, the camel
alone could support life in these sandy, waterless soli-
tudes, and with their herds the Arabs wandered from
pasture to pasture, from water hole to water hole,
guided at night by the stars which they early learned to
know and name. As the source of their meat and drink,
their tents of hair and their coarse garments, the sum
of their material existence, the camel won their reverence
a reverence it still commands among their desert
descendants of today.
Where scant rains did fall and collect in the coastal
mountain valleys sloping down to the sea the periphery
of Arabia was more favoured as man's dwelling place.
Copious wells in the valley floors and shady palm groves
about them permitted of settled habitation, and in time
the amenities of life could be increased by the introduc-
tion of goats and cattle, the horse and the ass. These settle-
ments developed into colonies of people who gradually
acquired, if they did not already possess, characteristics
quite different from their desert kinsmen. Along the
coasts fishermen were potential boatbuilders and seamen,
and as time went on strange mariners from overseas the
first perhaps from ancient Egypt came to barter, bring-
ing also the science of agriculture.
From petty beginnings a more corporate life grew up
in favoured spots and a comparatively enlightened out-
look, in contrast to the insular and unchanging ways of
the desert. But in the earliest times such settlements were
few and insignificant, and the peoples of Arabia were for
the most part nomadic tribes who were mainly regarded
as barbarians by their civilized neighbours. They were
men of predatory habit, men given to robbery with vio-
lence. In the very first book of the Bible the Arab nomad
[4]
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
is summed up for us in the person of Ishmael, 'He will
be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and
every man's hand against him.' This of course is the tra-
ditional view throughout the ages and down to this day,
the view of the neighbouring settled man, the agricul-
turalist and the trader, the man who has accumulated
possessions and cherishes security.
The inhabitants of Arabia have always comprised these
two types, the militant nomad and the peaceful settler.
A mutual antagonism has divided them. In a land where
famine and ignorance combined to prevent a rational way
of life the settled man regarded the nomad as a natural
enemy, the nomad regarded the settled man as a legitimate
prey. Arabia Deserta was an unsubjugated and savage, if
thinly populated world, whose denizens, in the intervals
of their pastoral pursuits, issued forth on plundering
raids into the lands of the settled dwellers towards the
coasts. Shedding innocent blood had no terror for them.
They had their own code of tribal honour and tribal
sanctions. Nor was it entirely without mercy. The right of
asylum, for instance, was sacrosanct, the custom whereby
a refugee from another's wrath once given protection by
a desert tribe could feel as safe as they; they would
never surrender him whatever his offence, however in-
fluential the pursuer or tempting the inducement an
honourable tradition to which the desert dwellers of our
time are true.
There was not much godly religion in Arabia before
Muhammad's day. Those nomads who worshipped any-
thing at all (for by nature they were not spiritually
minded men) seem to have had a predilection for trees
and stones, believing these to be the abodes of spirits.
The single stone or monolith was probably a widely
[5]
THE ARABS
spread Semitic cult and possibly the prototype of the
altar. The settled man doubtless tended to evolve re-
ligious observances, but here again there was no uni-
formity. Every settlement had its own favourite local
spirit. Mana, the spirit of doom, was preferred here;
Gadd, the spirit of good luck, there ; others were Yaghuth,
the helper; Wadd, the spirit of friendship. Many of
these spirits appear to have been propitiated or exorcised
rather than worshipped, their influence dreaded rather
than invoked, and to this day a cult of propitiating and
exorcising spirits is practised throughout the coasts of
eastern and southern Arabia, covertly where the au-
thorities are religious and active, elsewhere quite openly. 1
In immediate pre-Islamic times idol worship, a late in-
novation from Syria, was practised in the settlements
along the old trade routes, and some of the spirits came,
too, to be represented by images.
Marriage with the Arabs of antiquity was probably
at first a very casual link bordering on promiscuity. It is
likely to have differed little from the practice attributed to
most primitive cultures, whereby the woman remained in
her own tribe and the children she bore came to be mem-
bers of her totem. Indeed, at the beginning of the Chris-
tian Era it would appear that Arab children customarily
took their names from their mothers rather than their
fathers, after the model of Simon son of Miriam rather
than Simon son of Jonas, and this practice survives to this
day among the nomadic tribes of the deserts, though rarely
found among settled Arabs. As time went on men came to
take wives unto themselves on the more enduring basis
familiar to us, and children were born into the father's
tribe. Endogamous marriages between cousins were doubt-
a For description of the rites see my Alarms and Excursions in Arabia.
[6]
y*
TAPPING A FRANKINCENSE BUSH.
A DESERT SCENE.
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
less the rule, and marriage by capture common. Men were
of course polygynous, where they could afford it, there
being no limit set to the number of wives one man could
have. He had dominion over these wives and could divorce
them at will, and if a man died his brother inherited his
widows as though they were chattels. The Arabs love
children, and sons must always have been desirable in the
desert, where the aggressive qualities are those which
Nature demands and rewards and the measure of a man
is the number of kinsmen he has to rally to his side or to
avenge him. Contraception must have been as repugnant
then as now, yet the Arab traditions insist that female
infanticide was commonly practised a sidelight on
Arabia's habitual hunger.
Within the peninsula the Arabs, unconcerned with an
outside world, lived their frugal pastoral life. When their
wanderings brought them near to settlements we can pic-
ture them on the lookout to pick up better weapons, for
these and their mounts formed the supreme considera-
tion. And to this end they may have taken temporary serv-
ice ^ith merchants as caravaners, though they would have
been too firmly wedded to their free and easy life of the
deserts to do this for long; and as for agriculture, none
would have stooped so low, for the traditional view of the
desert warrior, impecunious and ragged though he be, is
that husbandry is a slave's job. And so with other crafts.
There was, of course, no pottery, for fragile vessels have
no place in nomadic life. They carried their water in skins,
and practically all their simple wants were met by the
roughest weaving and fashioning of the hair and hides
provided by their camels.
The single notable art in an otherwise artless existence
was poetry. The desert men were notorious lovers of
[7]
THE ARABS
titillating rhyme, a thing to which their language lent
itself, and in spite of their illiteracy they were great
versifiers. Their folklore 2 was probably told in rhymed
prose, though the boasting measures, most beloved by
them, had chiefly to do with war or love or hospitality, and
the sense most assuredly could be subordinated to the
sound. Arabs today fondly cherish a tradition that some of
the most complex metres in all the great variety known to
Arabic verse existed among the illiterate Arabs of the pre-
Islamic centuries; a belief, however, scarcely shared by
our authorities.
While Arabia Deserta followed these primitive ways
the mountainous regions of Arabia Felix in the far south-
west were relatively civilized. Here spice groves attracted
traders from across the seas, and soon the civilized world
whence they came was sending its wares in exchange for
shipments of the local produce. With trade came cultural
influences, and the fame of those south Arabian riches
went echoing throughout the ancient East. Our Scriptures
give glimpses of caravans, loaded with frankincense and
precious spices, coming from beyond the great deserts to
the courts of Israel. But Israel was clearly not Arabia's
first or greatest mart. That title belongs to ancient Egypt,
for the use of frankincense there is known to date back to
the third millennium B.C. The purposes to which it was put
were in part magical, in part ceremonial and probably at
first both. It was burned on all sacred and solemn occa-
sions in the ritual of the temple, in the process of mummifi-
cation of princes of the royal blood and of sacred animals,
and in funeral rites. In Israelitish times it was burnt be-
fore the tabernacle of the Lord, it was brought with gold
2 For the folklore of Beduin of the South Arabian desert see my Arabia
Felix.
[8]
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
and myrrh by the three wise men to our infant Lord, and
later its use in the ritual of Christian worship appears
fully established in Justinian's time (sixth century) as it
already was in Hellenistic court ceremonial.
The size and splendour of the caravans that later
brought the spices up through Arabia to the Greco-Roman
world are proverbial. We can picture the incense har-
vesters in the southern mountains tapping the silver shrubs
for the coveted gum ; the merchants garnering sackloads
of the dried sweet-smelling resin in their spacious go-
downs or supervising an army of camels couched for load-
ing and giving their final instructions to agents who will
accompany them to the marts of the outside world; the
long serpentine caravans winding northwards through the
wilderness, the caravaners ever fearful of nomads swoop-
ing down upon them, here taking a guide to act as safe-
conduct, there halting by day and moving forward under
cover of night, always, we may be sure, paying bribes to
the tribes through whose territory they passed to ensure
immunity from attack, as has been the way of pious Mos-
lems from the outside world all down the Islamic centuries
when making the pilgrimage to the holy places of Mecca
and Medina.
"Settlements which have been dignified with the name of
cities sprang up along these ancient trade routes, the chief
of them in the southwest. There the merchants lived in
what must have been opulent and cultured surroundings
for the Arabia of those times. The main frankincense
groves lay probably to the eastwards as they do today, lin-
ing the red mountain valleys two thousand feet up, in the
Qara and Qamr ranges facing inwards towards the des-
ert. From here the main caravan route ran westwards
along the Wadi Hadhramaut, where, as a classical author-
[9]
THE ARABS
Ity has it, 'even the earth exudes a sweet fragrance;
myrrh, frankincense and cinnamon is produced , . . and bal-
sam and other fragrant plants, though their perfume very
soon passes away.' The great desert of Rub'al Khali, lying
to the northwards, presented an insuperable barrier, so
that the route continued westwards to Mariaba (Mar'ib) ,
which the Greeks tell us was a city that 'stands on a moun-
tain full of trees . . . some of the people cultivate the fields,
others traffic in spices either produced at home or brought
from Ethiopia sailing thither across the straits in boats of
bark.' 1 * From Mariaba, the capital of Saba and centre
of the traffic (not far from Sana, the capital of the Yemen
today), the route turned north and so continued, more or
less parallel with the Red Sea coast to Taima, a very
ancient settlement in the far north of Arabia. Taima was
at the crossroads of the trade routes and so was the great
distributing centre. From here fresh caravans set out
the routes in later times running, one, northwards to
Petra, Damascus and Palmyra; another, westwards
through Sinai to Egypt; a third, eastwards to Mesopo-
tamia. The civilization that grew up in the southwest was
built on the riches of this spice trade. Settled communities
lived within walled towns, practised agriculture and com-
merce, wrote on wood and stone, feared the gods and
honoured their kings. Their inscriptions show them to have
been organized principalities with dynasties and hegem-
onies going back to 1000 B.C. and some authorities con-
sider many centuries earlier.
Their religion was in part the worship of the heavenly
bodies, characteristic of the river valley civilizations of
Egypt and Mesopotamia and usually associated with a
*This figure refers to the numbered reference in the Bibliography at the
end of the book, and similarly throughout the text
[10]
t^'
NUBIA 1
HUB' At KHALI
DESERT
XMB1A BEFORE MIWAMMAD
THE ARABS
developed agriculture, for it is supposed that agricultura-
lists must early have noticed that certain positions of the
heavenly bodies coincided with their seasonal floods, and
from this have gone on to believe that the heavenly bodies
were the source of them. This was a fertility cult* The
moon, under various names, was a chief among gods. The
sun, Shams, his consort perhaps, sometimes called Al-lat,
was chief among goddesses, and was also worshipped in
Nabataea and Palmyra, the northern borderlands of the
peninsula; others were Thuraiyya, identified with the
Pleiades, the rain giver, and Uzza, possibly the planet
Venus. Another name for the Venus god was Athtar (mas-
culine in south Arabia), the Ashtoreth or Astarte of the
north.
Other pagan cults were practised whose gods, not far
removed from members of the community, seemed to take
a fiendish delight in sending afflictions, and Sabaeans are
warned in one of their inscriptions against committing
deeds offensive to the gods. For these were made wrathful
by man's violation of forbidden foods and forbidden days,
and, to a less extent perhaps, by moral lapses, and they
sent disease, pestilence or some adversity upon the offender
until their wrath subsided. They could be appeased, and
ministering to this end were temples, sacrificial altars and
priests. This was a propitiation cult, and sacrifices were
made of camels, bullocks and other animals, incense and
sweet-smelling spices entering into the ritual. In times of
trouble the people had recourse to the priest or other holy
man to discover which particular god was offended, what
was the offence and the appropriate means of appeasing
the divine wrath. In addition to the offering of sacrifices,
statues and inscriptions were erected in honour of some
gods. They had shrines and other places of pilgrimage,
[12]
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
to which thank offerings and propitiatory gifts were
brought, and a. survival of the sacredness of these pre-
Islamic shrines lingers in central south Arabia where such
are still the objects of local pilgrimages, and where, in
case of dispute, oaths are made before them in the belief
that, should the oath be false, the shrine will avenge itself
on the false swearer.
Such cults are known to have been practised by the
four separate peoples of the ancient south. The names
of these peoples recorded by the Greeks find confirmation
in their own inscriptions. Thousands of inscriptions have
been collected in southwest Arabia, though not all of them
have as yet been translated. They are in a character which
resembles Ethiopic and is not closely related to the Arabic
character which, indeed, it antedates by a thousand years.
'Of fhese ancient peoples Minasans, Sabseans, Qatabanis
and Hadhramautis the Minaeans appear to be the oldest
(1500 B.C. ?) , but the Sabaeans are easily the most famed.
Indeed, as the Psalms, Job and Jeremiah suggest, they
often gave their name to the entire civilized south.
Their queen, the Arabs tell us, was none other than
our Queen of Sheba, Sheba being an anglicized form of
Saba, and her name was Bellas. That the Sabaeans had
queens we know, for a Mesopotamian king in 750 B.C. re-
ceived tribute from one of them who gloried in the name
of Queen Shamsi and Ita'amara. But we learn from Jo-
'sephus that there was an African Saba in the land of
Nubia, too, and he assigns Egypt and Ethiopia for her
dominion. The Queen of Sheba is, of course, claimed by
the Abyssinians as their queen, and both Arabs and Abys-
sinians have traditions about her which clearly have a com-
mon origin. The languages of Ethiopia and of the southern
kingdoms were, moreover, kindred languages, and there
[13]
THE ARABS
was trade and other intercourse between these peoples that
must have led to common cultural influences on both sides
of the Straits of Bab al Mandab, if indeed the two peoples
were not of kindred origin, neither perhaps 'Arab' in the
familiar sense of the word (the reader interested in racial
origins is referred to an Appendix), and it is conceivable
that the legendary ruler had been queen of both the
Arabian and the African Sabaeans an issue that is left un-
decided in our biblical story, where the queen is referred
to vaguely as the queen of the south.
Ancient south Arabia and ancient Nubia (one or both
may solve the hieroglyphic riddle of the Land of Punt)
clearly had contacts with ancient Egypt and with Baby-
lonia. Not only were the spice lands of south Arabia
famous, but so were the copper and turquoise mines of
the north. These brought Egyptian garrisons in the third
millennium B.C. to occupy Sinai (Sinai turquoises adorned
the Great Pyramid), and in later times an Egyptian
colony was pushed forward midway down the western
trade route at a settlement called Yathrib, the Medina of
the future.
Armies of Mesopotamian kings had early swept west-
wards across the northern Arab borderlands, one of them
to establish itself on the shores of the Mediterranean, for
the trade routes must be kept open and needed continued
vigilance down into Assyrian times, as the expedition of
the famed Sennacherib shows. But the Arabs on the desert
fringes would stand for no meek submission to rich tres-
passers. They raided caravans when they were hungry or
for what it was worth, and also doubtless to keep a martial
flame alive ; and successive generations of budding youth
of the tribes, anxious to show manly prowess and emulate
the deeds of their heroes or stand well in the eyes of the
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
desert, would ensure no lack of recruits for the most dan-
gerous adventure. Their camels in later times their
horses, too carrying scarcely any weight, could swoop
down and disappear as swiftly as they came, easily eluding
the less mobile troops of a civilized enemy, who would be
unable to pursue the raiders very far from ignorance of
pastures and water holes and fear of the forbidding heat
of the burning deserts. Depredations must have grown
serious indeed when, in the middle of the sixth century
B.C., the last Babylonian king led an army across the desert
to ancient Taima, which he invested and where he built a
palace, only to yield it erelong to a Persian conqueror.
The maritime Arabs of the eastern seaboard, through
these early times, were doubtless engaged in carrying on
the sea trade between Babylonia and India. Their country,
too, may well have been the Land of Magan, whence
Sumer drew her copper and the wood used by the Priest-
King Gudea in the making of his temple at Lagash. But
eastern Arabia remained unknown to the west until the
approach of the Christian Era, when the veil was lifted by
one of Alexander the Great's campaigns.
Fresh from his conquests across western Asia, Alexan-
der arrived at the mouth of the Indus near where Karachi
now stands. With Babylon for his objective he planned his
long march westwards, skirting the coasts of Baluchistan
and Persia, and to make the journey possible built a fleet
of ships to sail along these desolate coasts in attendance
on him, landing food and supplies at frequent intervals.
That march, bristling with difficulties, would tax even a
modern army's resources, but the forces led by Alexander
achieved it in 327 B.C. On the historic voyage Nearchus,
the admiral of the Greek fleet, secured the services of a
Persian Gulf pilot and learned trom him that Arabia was
[is]
THE ARABS
a peninsula and that it was all but possible to circumnavi-
gate it. Later on some of the Greek ships set out to make
the attempt, but perhaps, fortunately for themselves,
turned back, possibly intimidated by the maelstrom that
normally lashes Cape Musandam.
Arabia was by this time becoming known not merely as
the land of spices, but as the highway of trade between
India and the Hellenistic world, for Egypt and Babylonia
were now in decline. Indian and Arab ships came, braving
the winter northeast monsoon, loaded with such luxuries
as pearls, beryls, ginger and pepper. The early Ptolemies
had particularly encouraged the Red Sea trade and had by
diplomatic means established small mercantile communi-
ties on the African and Socotra coasts to serve its needs,
but such was the fear of piracy in those waters that it was
customary to send armed guards in the ships. Within living
memory a British ship was driven ashore on the south
Arabian coast; she was plundered and every member of
her crew ruthlessly murdered: an echo, as it were, of
Arabian exploits in the time of the later Ptolemies when
the Red Sea was ravaged by pirates and freebooters, trade
suffered, ships were taken and all on board sold Into
slavery.
To the Romans, who became masters of Egypt in 30
B.C., this condition of things was intolerable, and they
soon found an excellent reason for dealing effectively with
it, though their main objective was the unlocking of the
fabulous riches of supposed Eldorado in south Arabia.
A fleet of one hundred and thirty Roman ships set out
from Aqaba in 26 B.C. with ten thousand Roman infantry,
one thousand Nabataean Irregulars, and fifty Jews. -^Elius
Gallus, the eparch of Egypt, was himself in command and
had for his guide and adviser on tribal matters and ter-
[16]
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
rain what we should term today 'political officer to the
force', a role the writer has filled in the stormy days of
the Arab rebellion in Mesopotamia a Nabataean, named
Syllaeus. The force was disembarked at Leuke Koine, a
point some way down the Red Sea coast, and thence the
march was begun into the interior. It is impossible to fol-
low with certainty the actual route taken, because the
place names of those days are no longer identifiable, but
for the first fifty days Syllaeus led the army through water-
less and trackless wastes, and the men suffered terribly
from scurvy of the gums and legs. It is suspected that
Syllaeus had a personal motive for not wishing the Romans
to succeed too well, and that in accompanying them at all
his object was to gain knowledge of settlements he hoped
one day to make his own.
Whether or not, six months passed by. The Romans had
won battles but no treasure, and, disillusioned, they began
their retreat. Since a retreating force may expect to have
to fight a rearguard action in Arabia, where superior arms
excite covetous eyes, and an enemy, particularly at night,
is swift and elusive, it is remarkable that JElius Callus
seems only to have been involved in one action on his way
back to the coast, which he was able to reach in sixty days.
From Strabo, who accompanied the expedition as war
correspondent, we learn that Syllaeus, the discredited guide,
was sent a prisoner to Rome, where he was beheaded in the
streets as a traitor, while the Romans consoled themselves
with the boast that despite all their losses from disease,
toil and hunger only seven Roman soldiers were actually
killed in action. But the truth seems to be that their plans
had been ill-conceived and the army was not properly
equipped for a tropical campaign; they were disappointed,
too, in finding wilderness and barbarous villages where
[17]
THE ARABS
they expected a prosperous countryside and thriving towns.
They never invaded Arabia again, and this expedition is
the isolated example of a European invasion of Arabia
Proper throughout the centuries.
Clearly the southern principalities had already declined,
and Minaeans, Sabaeans, Qatabanis and Attramatei dis-
appear in the mists of antiquity. When the classical writers
again speak of the southwest they no longer mention these
peoples individually nor tell us of their fate ; henceforward
they speak of one people, the Homeritae or Himyarites.
But the days of the Himyarites were as grass, for by the
year A.D, 350 the Abyssinian king numbered Himyar and
Yemen among his dominions.
The next two centuries witnessed a fitful Abyssinian
occupation of southwest Arabia. It was probably little
more than a shadowy hold on the Yemen coast, except
intermittently at times of actual military invasion. Abys-
sinia had meanwhile become the client of a new power that
had arisen in Egypt, the Byzantine, and had adopted the
religion of her patrons ; and hence Christianity came to be
introduced into south Arabia by the Abyssinians.
Jewish colonies already existed there, and these also had
their rival imperial connection. The Sassanids, the great
Persian dynasty of Zoroastrian creed (a nonproselytizing
and nationalistic religion to which, indeed, none but Per-
sians were admitted), had arisen out of the ashes of
Babylon. For the next four hundred years Persians and
Byzantines struggled one with another for supremacy in
world politics, a conflict that was not without its influence
on Arabia.
That Christianity was the religion of foreign invaders
the Abyssinians must have militated against its accept-
ance by the local Himyarites. Judaism, on the other hand,
Ti81
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
though not a proselytizing system, made considerable
headway in southwest Arabia, where whole tribes are be-
lieved to have embraced it. Whether this was from spirit-
ual conviction or political convenience is not clear, but
traditions concerning the events that followed suggest
that the two religions stood for opposing political factions,
in which case Judaism came to connote a particular poli-
tical allegiance. This faction must have grown powerful
in the early sixth century, when it rose successfully to throw
off the Abyssinian yoke. Tradition speaks of a trench
filled with fire, of Christian captives offered the choice be-
tween apostasy and burning, of a bishop's martyrdom
and wholesale Christian massacre. The Abyssinian inva-
sion that immediately followed was undertaken ostensibly
to avenge these wrongs, though another tradition repre-
sents the Abyssinians and Himyarites as struggling at this
time for the control of the Red Sea trade. Abyssinian vic-
tory at length brought to an end the last Himyaritic king-
dom under its Jew-convert insurgent leader. The new
viceroy from Aksum, with the new bishop, set immediately
to work to restore the great dam of Mar'ib which had
been destroyed by a flood more than half a century before,
as a commemorative tablet bearing an inscription with a
Christian invocation to the Holy Trinity testifies to this
day.
Medievally recorded Arab tradition attaches enormous
importance to this famous waterwork. The ancient pros-
perity of the south is bound up with it ; the south's decay
with its destruction. But the tradition must embody a series
of disasters stretching back over four or five centuries,
probably more, for, as we saw, the Roman invaders even
before the Christian Era found not continuous fertility
and walled cities as they had expected, but comparative
[19]
THE ARABS
desolation. It is unlikely that Arab memory went back so
far as the ancient southern kingdoms: the civilization of
the south, in any case, had rested on frankincense and
spices, not on irrigated crops*
The last Abyssinian occupation of the Yemen endured
for a brief half century. Whether from the decline of the
colonists, as is probable, or from their despotic temper,
as one tradition has it, the local opposing faction that
leaned towards Persia soon got the upper hand again.
Southeastern Arabia had already been conquered by the
Persians in the fourth century, Oman already ruled by
Persian viceroys for two hundred years 8 so that the ex-
tension of Persian influence westwards into the Yemen
presented few difficulties, and that influence had not en-
tirely disappeared when the Prophet arose.
The vast interior spaces of Arabia remained inviolate.
The mass of the Arabs lived their lives remote from, and
uninfluenced by, these foreign imperialistic activities along
the fringes of the peninsula. In the north Persians and
Byzantines secured themselves against unwelcome atten-
tions of desert marauders by encouraging the growth of
two small Arab buffer states along their desert frontiers.
Hira and Ghassan were states which may well have owed
as much to their strategic location as to inherent virtues,
however these abounded. We have seen that the nomadic
Beduin, goaded by hunger, were an immemorial nuisance
to the neighbouring civilizations. At best, when impelled
by some powerful impulse such as that which governed
later historic migrations that revolutionized the world,
they showed themselves capable of developing an impres-
sive civilization ; at worst, they were ever ready, in return
*My grammar and vocabulary of the surviving Iranian dialect found in
southeastern Arabia was published in the JRAS. of October 1930.
[20]
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
for proper remuneration, to give up their raiding and,
indeed, to act as escorts to caravans and keep off others
like themselves who would attack their patrons; for the
nomads, in spite of tribal associations, are incorrigible in-
dividualists. So all down the centuries it has been the
policy of Powers to enlist the support, by the lure of
financial and political advantage, of the Arabs nearest
their frontiers, and these, given the right inducements,
have co-operated and afforded an effective rampart against
the hosts of their less favoured kinsmen in the deserts be-
yond.
To start with there was probably small difference be-
tween them. The men of Hira like those under Ghassan,
not improbably, came originally as marauders to batten
on the industry of the settled cultivators. Their political
value as a potential buffer against the desert was appre-
ciated, the right was conceded them to exact a landlord's
tribute, and they were encouraged to give themselves up
to a life of hunting and war and lavish hospitality while
their bards produced poetry an aristocratic mode of life
exactly suited to the desert temper.
The Ghassanid principality, successor to the vanished
Palmyrene state, adopted, as the client of the Byzantines,
the Christian faith of its patrons, and Justinian made its
kings patricians of his empire. These kings, claiming aris-
tocratic Yemeni origin, lived a seminomadic life inherited
from recent ancestors, eschewing a capital city and spend-
ing the seasons now in one, now in another of their
favourite resorts, where beyond the Jordan the ruins of
their palaces and churches of Byzantine architecture still
occasionally serve to shelter modern Beduin. The Lakh-
mids of Hira, who also claimed Yemeni origin, were even
more renowned, for they had a capital city and professed a
[21]
THE ARABS .
pagan creed that was not the creed of their Persian pa-
trons : indeed, they later flirted with Christianity, the re-
ligion of the Byzantine enemy, so that the princes of Hira
were compelled publicly to abjure that faith, though the
common folk came in time to embrace it, as indeed did
their last prince. To the desert Arabs the luxurious life of
these prosperous borderland kinsmen seemed idyllic in-
deed, and the earliest Arab poetry sings mostly of their
ancient glories. But in the latter part of the sixth century
both Byzantines and Persians had begun to reduce their
commitments in these northern buffer states, and the
borderland Arabs were fain to revert to their primitive
ways.
Ancient Arabia had many tongues, all of them belong-
ing to one Semitic family, though spoken by peoples who
appear to have been of different racial origin. 4 In the
northern borderlands were many settled peoples, all of
them possessing written languages. 5 In the south were the
four distinct lettered peoples, already mentioned as known
to the Greeks, who made the Arabia of antiquity famous.
Their languages belonged, as their inscriptions show, to
the south Semitic group. The mass of the Arabs occupy-
ing the great heart of the peninsula were, on the other
hand, unlettered. They spoke a dialect of Semitic which
was not a literary language before the sixth century of our
era, when the Prophet arose. The curious thing about this
north and central Arabian speech is that its most correct
form was spoken not in the settlements such as Mecca and
Yathrib, but among the nomads. Modern Arabic is its off-
spring.
These various Arabian languages were no mere local
*The reader interested is referred to an Appendix, pp. 337 et seq.
G Aramaic, Syriac, Lihyani and Hebrew.
[22]
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
dialects. There existed between them differences compara-
ble to those that divide the Romance languages. There
must, of course, have been an ancient Semitic parent
tongue, corresponding to the Latin ancestor of the Ro-
mance languages, and, says Dr Margoliouth, 'the classi-
cal language of the peninsula should naturally have been
not the patois of the Beduin, but the idiom which had for
so long served for inscriptions commemorating laws, con-
tracts, treaties, dedications, vows, epitaphs and the
like.' 2 *
In early times the languages of the south would almost
certainly have enjoyed a superior prestige 6 because they
were the languages of a civilization, but the position came
naturally to be reversed in the seventh and succeeding cen-
turies, by which time they were hi decay, because the
Prophet arose where the northern dialect was spoken. As
the tongue of Muhammad and the tongue of the divine
revelations recorded in the Holy Qur'an, thence as the
language of Arab armies that swept the world, it became
the lingua franca of an empire, and its pre-eminence today
is the natural consequence. But this Arabic of the Islamic
period it was then about to enjoy what in English cor-
responds to an Elizabethan age needs no superior an*
tiquity among Semitic tongues to establish its greatness;
it is inherently great. The pride of the Arabs in their lan-
guage could rest alone on its own marvellous structural
design, its comprehensiveness, its flexibility. 'From its
o^n inner resources it could evolve the mot juste/ and it
provided, centuries before our Renaissance, a ready in-
6 The Hebraisms which have been traced in the inscriptions of the ancient
south that are found lacking in northern Arabic, the established descent of
Ethiopic of Abyssinia from south Semitic and the marked philological
affinities of the ancient Akkadian language of Babylonia with south
Semitic, alike suggest a superior antiquity for the southern forms.
[23]
THE ARABS
strument for the translation of the lore of ancient Greece*
Even today, incredible as it may seem, the Arabs have sel-
dom to go outside this ancient language of the deserts to
express the terminology of modern sciences.
It is odd that the Arabs, whose tongue this was, should
have shown so scant a memory of the Sabaean and cognate
cultures, yet the old Greek classical authorities tell of the
sending of gold and silver plate to south Arabia, and the
archaeological spade of recent times has unearthed Greek
statuary there, from which we may judge of Hellenistic
influences penetrating Arabia before Muhammad's day.
According to the Arabs, however, the times which pre-
ceded the Prophet, i.e., sixth-seventh century A.D., are
par excellence the Days of Ignorance, the Dark Ages, the
Jahiliya. Arabia such is the conventional view was
wholly deficient of enlightenment. Savagery and ignorance
stalked the land. The Arabs were pagan, remote in their
deserts, sequestered from outside influences.
The great mass of the Arabs, it is true, were pagans.
Yet Arabia, as we have seen, had its leaven of Judaism
and Christianity in settled areas, north, south, east and
west. Jewish communities particularly had been estab-
lished for centuries in the principal settlements along the
ancient trade route, notably at Taima, Yathrib and Naj-
ran.
Jewish penetration of Arabia is known to have been
going on in the early Christian centuries by way of the
north. Some colonists were possibly those Jews who had
been turned out of Judea by Hadrian and Trajan and who,
we are told, built synagogues in the wilderness ; others are
supposed to have been Edomites from Nabataea, and
Hebrew inscriptions have been found in the far southwest.
Settled Arab tribes of the settlements, as we saw, also
[24]
THE ARABS OF ANTIQUITY
embraced Judaism ; indeed the Jewish colonies found sur-
viving in Najran today Arab tradition prefers to regard as
of the religion, rather than of the blood, of Israel.
The Jews from Palestine seem to have come as agricul-
turalists ; hence their chief colony was founded among the
agricultural community of Yathrib, but they soon took
to arts and crafts, in which they easily excelled the Arabs,
and also to commerce, so that they tended to be town
dwellers. In spite of their origin among lettered societies
they are supposed, after a few centuries of Arabian domi-
cile, to have given up their old native tongue and to have
called their tribes and their sons by Arab names, though
at the time of the Prophet Muhammad they are repre-
sented at Yathrib as still possessing tables of the law, at-
taching great importance to their rabbis and observing the
Sabbath by certain food taboos. Their monotheistic reli-
gion, as we shall see later, had an early attraction for the
Arab Prophet and a considerable influence on his teachings.
It does not appear, however, to have been the only mono-
theistic cult at the time, for there were Arab communi-
ties with one god, Rahman, and some suppose that many
so-called Judaistic communities of ancient Arabia may have
been Arab ones professing Rahmanism. The law of the
market place of Yathrib, the Jewish stronghold, is said to
have been Jewish law even as late as the time that Mu-
hammad made his home there in the seventh century,
though Jewish influence was already in decline.
Christianity, too, in forms however diverse and crude,
was practised in the two northern Arab buffer states of re-
nown, Ghassan and Hira ; it was practised in Najran in
the south, a settlement rivalling Mecca itself, and in the
half-settled townships of the Persian Gulf littoral, the
Bahrain. Not improbably it penetrated even to Nejd, for
[25]
THE ARABS
the legendary KInda whose seat was at Yamama numbered
among his following Imru al Kais, the famous Christian
warrior-poet of the Arabs. Scattered Christian communi-
ties like these would doubtless, however, have been small
minorities, and where Beduin professed such a religion it is
unlikely that the allegiance had anything spiritual about it ;
more probably it had some political connotation.
Yet it would appear that the more enlightened mer-
chants of the settlements having trade intercourse with
Jews and Christians both inside and outside the peninsula
and caravaners and travellers who annually went up to
Syria and to Mesopotamia were, during the centuries
that led up to the Prophet's birth, not unfamiliar with re-
ligious cults that taught the existence of one supreme God,
creator of all things, whose instruments were angels and
prophets, who sent down oracles to earth and declared
himself by miracles: cults that taught a Judgment Day
when the dead should rise, the believers enter into ever-
lasting life, the unbelievers into everlasting damnation.
The very emphasis which conventional Arab tradition
places on the ignorance and barbarism of the Arabs be-
fore the time of the Prophet has led some Western authori-
ties to stress, perhaps unduly, their contrary opinion.
'Arabia,' says Dr O'Leary, 'was not so self-centred nor so
self-contained; indeed to a great extent its later segrega-
tion seems largely due to the influence of Islam, . . . and
consequently the religion of Islam was not evolved among
remote tribes with only very slight contact with the outside
world, but in the midst of the general tide of West Asiatic
Civilization. 51 *
[26]
Vl
SL 4 at
+* **
jJLiill
* >
>^
THE EARLY ARABIC ALPHABET
FROM THE TOMBSTONE BELOW.
(By courtesy of the Royal Astatic Society)
THE MOST ANCIENT ISLAMIC MONU-
MENT KNOWN, THE TOMBSTONE OF
ABD AL RAHMAN IBN KHAIR AL HAJRI
CHAPTER II
The Prophet Muhammad
His humanity extended itself to the lower creation* He /or-
bade the employment of living birds as targets for marks-
men and remonstrated with those who ill-treated their
camels. When some of his followers had set fire to an
ant-hill he compelled them to extinguish it. Foolish acts of
cruelty which were connected with old superstitions were
swept away by him. . . . No more was a dead mans camel to
be tied to his tomb to perish of thirst and hunger. No more
was the evil eye to be propitiated by the bleeding of a certain
proportion of the herd. No more was the rain to be conjured
by tying burning-torches to the tails of oxen. . . . The manes
and tails of horses were not to be cut, the former being
meant by nature for their warmth and the latter as a pro-
tection against flies: nor were asses to be branded.** MAR-
GOLIOUTH
THE YEAR A.D. 570 or thereabouts was born in Mecca
a son of the Arabs whose fame today places him among
the greatest men of all time: one who was destined to
found a world religion, to inspire a revolution which raised
his fellow countrymen from obscurity to eminence and to
change the whole course of history.
Muhammad, son of Abdullah son of Abd al Muttalib,
came into the world amid lowly surroundings, of good tri-
bal ancestry, which his followers came later to ennoble,
and which his detractors have uncharitably sought to de-
[27]
THE ARABS
base. His father had died before his birth; his mother was
to die soon after it, leaving the orphan boy to be reared by
relations, first a grandfather and then an uncle. Both were
kind to him, but both were poor, and the boy grew up in
homes that knew hardship.
The Arabia of his day was the primitive land we have
described. The greater part of its people consisted of
pagan nomadic tribesmen, who combined the roles of
herdsmen and warriors ; they were also proud and brave
men who were accustomed to much freedom and who had
never bent the neck under the yoke of foreign conqueror.
Each tribe had its hereditary chief, but he was regarded
as little more than a senior among equals, to whom alle-
giance of a light and precarious kind was due in times of
crisis. Life in the great spaces of the desert encouraged
equality. No man approached another there with those
varying degrees of regard to which men in closely regi-
mented societies today are accustomed. Other nations
might boast of national freedom. The freedom of the
desert was a personal freedom, a freedom to kill neighbour
or brother, maybe, without fear of any constituted author-
ity, a freedom to forgive the murderer of a kinsman for
the consideration of blood money, again without recourse
to authority. The Arabs were men of inflammable temper,
quick to anger and swift to shed blood, capable of being
roused to battle by an appeal to the emotions, by an im-
passioned recital of some poem enshrining a valiant ex-
ploit. The frugal pastoral life of the deserts bred the sol-
dier or the bandit. Periodical drought demanded self-
discipline or drove to rapine and plunder; inherited blood
feuds perpetuated a lust for vengeance ; insecurity necessi-
tated unremitting vigilance as well as skill in the art of
riding and the use of weapons. With a sense of self-esteem
[28]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
went a suspicion of others and intolerance of strangers.
The Beduin were the products of a cruel environment,
volatile men whose friendship and enmity were alike capri-
cious. Such were the men to whom Muhammad's teachings
came early to be addressed.
But it was not from among such men that his religion
drew its inspiration. Islam was to take shape not in the
deserts, but among the settled Arabs of entirely different
temper. Its early life was cradled by the cultural influences
of the city of Muhammad's birth. Mecca at that time was
probably as well known and progressive a settlement as
existed within the peninsula, though perhaps no Arab city
had at this time acquired outside fame. It had grown up
around the well of Zem Zem, where, according to local
tradition, Hagar had found refreshment for her son
Ishmael when they were cast adrift by Abraham in the
wilderness. Whether or not this was at the root of a belief
in the sanctity of its environs, Mecca was already a holy
city and had been so for some centuries before the Proph-
et's coming. It was indeed to the trade brought by an an-
nual pilgrimage rather than to any local industry that the
settlement owed its rise, and its importance increased as
it came to dominate the trade route after the decline of
the south and the decay of Byzantine shipping in the Red
Sea.
The inhabitants of Mecca belonged chiefly to a tribe
called the Quraish. They formed a settled population such
as is usual in Arabian townships to this day ; tribal, that is,
in name, origin and organization, but essentially different
in function, being composed of merchants, shopkeepers,
caravaners and the like. As a settlement its interests were
served by peace and security and its outlook doubtless
marked by anti-Beduin sentiment. It had its own miniature
[29]
THE ARABS
government, for now that the old northern confederations
of Hira and Ghassan had decayed there were few, if any,
political organizations in the peninsula more comprehen-
sive than the city-state. Its religious cult was principally
the worship of an idol named Hubal, recently introduced
from Syria ; it had other idols, too, representing the much
older Arabian deities, Al Uzza, AHat and Mana ; a mono-
theistic creed was held by a tiny sect of Arabs known as
Hanifs; and Christianity and Judaism were both pro-
fessed, probably among a small foreign community and by
occasional visitors.
We know as little of the authentic childhood of Mu-
hammad as of Jesus of Nazareth. While yet a boy he
found employment minding camels. At the age of twelve
he is believed to have accompanied his uncle on a long
caravan journey, not improbably on one of those two
Meccan caravans that went up yearly to the fairs of Syria.
We may picture young Muhammad with other boys at
the time of Mecca's own annual fair, held in the month of
Dhul Hijja. A vast concourse of pilgrims crowded the
streets and alleyways. Townsmen from Yathrib and
Najran jostled Beduin from the near-by deserts, a motley
stream into which boys, naturally curious, would be drawn
by the appeal of a variety of accent, of dress and of
weapons. In the hostelries Muhammad would hear the
news of the desert told with intent voice and excited ges-
ture; he would listen breathlessly to caravaners fresh
from Syria or Mesopotamia bringing tidings of the wars
between Greeks and Persians, of strange beliefs and for-
eign practices, and doubtless the youthful imagination
would be fired to share such wonderful experiences and
see great armies marching.
The gala days of the fair were those when the pilgrims
[30]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
brought gifts to the heathen temple In the middle of the
city square where the idols were housed. There, at a
distance from the Ka'ba, as it came to be called, they dis-
robed and circled round in procession at a quick pace,
clapping their hands and singing. He would see them rev-
erently kissing the black stone in the wall of the sanctuary
and then follow them as they withdrew to make seven
visits to the neighbouring hills and seven times throw
stones into the Valley of Mina, and so to the scene of a
wholesale sacrifice of camels and sheep that brought the
rites to an end. This ritual must have burnt deep into the
young impressionable mind, for the grown man was to
incorporate much of it into his own religion. Trading in
Mecca went briskly on for these thirty days, and then an
end came to the Pilgrimage Fair with public contests in
oratory and poetry, arts to which the illiterate Arabs were
fondly addicted.
When these Beduin came again they would do so by
stealth, probably to raid the grazing grounds of Meccan
merchants and carry off camels, killing as by immemorial
custom anyone who stood in their way. The youth Mu-
hammad, as a Meccan herdsman, doubtless experienced
many scares of raiders, if not the reality, and tradition
gives him his first military adventure at eighteen when he
accompanied his uncle, probably in pursuit of desert braves
who had been paying some such unwelcome visit.
At twenty-four Muhammad, now in the service of
Khadija, a rich widow merchant of Mecca, found himself
leader of a caravan going to Syria. This journey, affording
contacts with the outside world to a man who was of ma-
ture age and commanding position, may well have had a
profound influence on his religious outlook, but whether
or not, it was to be the turning point in his domestic life.
[31]
THE ARABS
For so well did Muhammad conduct his patron's affairs
that on his return he won her admiration, and they were
married. Khadija was already the widow of two husbands.
She was many years older than Muhammad, but the mar-
riage with her brought him independence and an enhanced
status in the life of Mecca.
Muhammad was greatly devoted to Khadija. His life
with her seems to have been entirely happy, and so long
as she lived he did not marry again, an unusual fidelity
perhaps in the polygamous society of Mecca at that time.
During those fifteen years of early married life, as early
manhood passed into middle age, he lived unobtrusively as
a fond husband and father and like any other well-to-do
private citizen.
Tradition speaks of him as a man of striking appear-
ance with a fine sagacious face, black piercing eyes and a
flowing beard ; a sincere man, rather taciturn in speech, but
gifted with penetrating insight and a natural rugged elo-
quence a man whose rectitude won him the title of 'the
trustworthy* ; a kindly man and a lover of children. He
was illiterate; indeed, few of the Meccan merchants of his
day are thought to have acquired literacy and then only as
much as served the purpose of their business accounts, for
books were as yet a rarity in Arabia. But Illiteracy was
no greater handicap to him than it was to our own
medieval English kings or to many illustrious oriental po-
tentates of our day who can just read and write their own
language. Book learning carries less prestige in backward
societies than the moral and intellectual qualities of na-
tural leadership, and with these Muhammad was abun-
dantly endowed. He had an unusual grasp of realities, a
deep intuitive understanding of man and nature ; he was
a man that other men could believe in. Although religion
[32]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
seems to have been a late development, there being scarcely
any mention of it until the commencement of his ministry
in his middle age, he must have been a man of serious mind
and pious disposition, one who in his travels abroad and
intercourse at home had been curious to learn what other
men believed and practised. There were no religious books
in his native Arabic, and Muhammad could not have un-
derstood the foreign scriptures of the Jews and Christians
even if they had been read aloud to him. His knowledge
of these and other systems could only have been such as
he heard on 'the lips of men/
Suddenly Muhammad came to have remarkable reli-
gious experiences. He had reached his fortieth year when
in his retreat on Mount Hira he had a vision which he be-
lieved to be supernatural, a vision to call men to repent-
ance and the better life, to give up idol worship and to
confess the one and only true God, an inspiration that
man's strength and peace of mind were to be found in
resignation to the divine will.
From now on he began to speak of visions, of a faithful
spirit, later identified as the angel Gabriel, who came and
put God's words into his mouth; they were communica-
tions, he claimed, of supernatural origin, and he himself
was but the medium. He made no personal claims to
divinity or even that he had the gift of prophecy or of per-
forming miracles. On the contrary, he was to assert with
lifelong consistency that he was a mortal man. This dis-
claimer of divine origin brings him in one way into line
with the Old Testament prophets. It is a reason, too, why
our English word for his religion is really a misnomer. It
is not Muhammadanism or Muhammadan to the Arab.
They do not worship Muhammad, so there is really no
analogy with our words 'Christianity* and 'Christian' from
[33]
THE ARABS
the word 'Christ', though Buddhism and Confucianism
offer closer parallels. The name of the religion, accord-
ing to its devotees, is not Muhammadanism but Islam : the
Arab believer calls himself not Muhammadan but Muslim.
These words, 'Islam' for the religion and 'Muslim'
('Moslem') for the believer, derive from an Arabic
root word which means 'surrender', or, as we should say,
'resignation' : its full connotation being 'a sublime resig-
nation to God's will/
Muhammad spent much time in prayer and fasting, and
while in this condition the revelations of Allah came to
him. As he sat, silent and musing, he would suddenly be
overcome by great trembling, his face would change colour,
and he would pass into a trance. By his followers these
seizures were accepted as signs of divine revelation. Non-
Moslem authorities, on the other hand, have observed
that they are the symptoms of epilepsy, and some hold that
Muhammad was an epileptic, an opinion which Gibbon
branded as an absurd calumny of the Greeks.
While in the trance or perhaps on regaining conscious-
ness, Muhammad 'recited' what he had seen and heard to
the intimate friends about him, who, according to Arab
tradition, wrote down the revelations on leaves of grass
or shoulder bones of mutton or whatever other material
availed. These recitations were couched in language of
great authority purporting to be the voice of God, in a
literary style of ecstatic beauty recalling the prophetic
manner of the Old Testament.
Muhammad, in the first flush of these religious experi-
ences, declared that 'There is but one God, and Muham-
mad is a messenger of God' 1 ; that this God is the God of
a The word used in Arabic means 'sent-one' ; the term 'prophet 7 , however,
has the authority of established usage.
[34]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
the Jews and the God of the Christians; and that it is folly
and wickedness to worship idols such as men rub with wax.
The proclamation of such beliefs would doubtless have
given offence to his idol-worshipping fellow Meccans, and
at first Muhammad did not go out and preach publicly.
At the outset the revelations were disclosed within the
family circle. Some members believed and some did not.
Khadija, his wife, was an early convert, and so was his
cousin, Ali, but his uncle, Abu Talib, who brought him up,
remained an unbeliever to the end of his life, which came a
few years later. Of Muhammad's own conviction and sin-
cerity there would appear to be no doubt. He became
aflame with zeal to destroy the idolatrous cults of his na-
tive Mecca and convert his fellow Arabs to monotheism ;
in other words to bring their attitude into conformity with
the underlying conception of Judaism and Christianity.
Muhammad's first principle was the oneness of God
and the universality of God. Although God of the Jews,
He was no narrow, exclusive tribal God ; although God of
the Christians, He was not composed of Father, Son and
Holy Ghost. His fundamental attribute was oneness. It is
the slogan of the Arabs of the ages, and to this day they
are fanatical on this issue. The very word 'Trinity' is a
blasphemy to their ears.
Simplicity was the dominant note. The abstruse, and
to Muhammad incomprehensible, doctrines of the Incar-
nation and the Trinity were utterly inacceptable. To Mu-
hammad Jesus was just another prophet. The orthodox
Christianity of his day was thus lesa attractive to him than
Judaism; indeed, the revelations not only required the
concept of a pure monotheism, but even the ritual of the
Jews, the prayer ablutions, turning towards Jerusalem in
prayer, the banning of pig's flesh as unclean. Christians
[35]
THE ARABS
were rebuked for giving up these laws which had been ob-
served by Jesus and His apostles.
Muhammad clearly did not claim to be the founder of
a new religion but the restorer of an old one which he
called the religion of Abraham. We may indeed suppose
theological differences to have been a subordinate part of
his teachings, for the masses he addressed were pagans.
Intellectual differences of opinion were doubtless of less
moment to Muhammad than the sins of the world. It was
to save humanity from their sins, to make men and women
realize their duty to the one true God and their duty to
one another, that filled his heart and mind.
When Muhammad first went out into the highways
and byways to preach, his converts were at first very few.
Many were of lowly or even slave origin ; others, notably
Abu Bakr, Othman and Ali, were men of position and
influence. It required courage to damn the city gods and
to rebuke practically the whole of his fellow Meccans. At
first people thought him mad. His claims to be a prophet
in the old patriarchal tradition excited their derision. How
could they accept his teachings ? They much preferred their
own ancestral cults to the established foreign religions of
Jews and Christians, even as they knew them locally, and
Muhammad's teachings must have looked to them like a
hotchpotch. In any case they rejected outright his preten-
sions to be a prophet. They challenged him to perform
miracles if he was really a prophet of God. For reply
Muhammad disclaimed the power of working miracles.
To him the whole creation was a miracle : the earth, the
sky, man himself. To him the truth of his message was a
miracle, and, said Muhammad, God 'refused to give signs
and wonders that would lessen the merit of faith and in-
crease the guilt of unbelief.'
[36]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
Later votaries of Muhammad have, in spite of this,
ascribed to him supernatural attributes. His nocturnal visit
to Jerusalem, for instance, and thence to heaven for an
interview with the Almighty (neither place, incidentally,
is mentioned in the Qur'an, where a vision may be in-
tended, or, if some Moslem scholars are right, a dream)
has been believed literally by some of his followers who
claim Palestine as having a special significance for them
on that account. By old traditional belief Muhammad was
carried from Mecca through the air on a mysterious ani-
mal called Boraq and set down at the temple in Jerusalem.
There he dismounted, tethered Boraq and thence, escorted
by the angel Gabriel, ascended through the seven heavens,
visiting the various patriarchs, prophets and angels in their
apartments. Beyond the seventh heaven Gabriel was left
behind and Muhammad permitted to pass on alone, to-
wards the throne. While he was still two bowshots off he
felt a cold shiver pass through his heart and the hand of
God on his shoulder. The deity imposed upon Muhammad
the duty of believers to pray fifty times a day, but this
was reduced to five on the advice of Moses. Descending to
Jerusalem, he remounted his aerial Boraq 2 and so passed
through the skies back to Mecca, 'thus performing in the
tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand
years.' 11 *
We may dismiss literal interpretation as being incon-
sistent with Muhammad's claims and teachings. His pre-
cepts were a simple and rational piety, observances such
as prayer and fasting, the sinfulness of idolatry, the wor-
ship of one true and only God and claim to men's ac-
knowledgment of the divine authority behind his message.
Still the Meccans scoffed. They believed, doubtless,
word Barq in Arabic means lightning.
[37]
THE ARABS
that his teachings were subversive of the social order. As
men of business they were naturally averse from changes
which they thought might be to their loss, and clearly any
change in the traditional cult which brought thousands of
pilgrims to Mecca each year was to be looked on askance.
Was not Muhammad preaching that the city idols were
ineffectual and abhorrent ? Some members of Muhammad's
own family were, doubtless for political reasons, among
his bitterest opponents, though some, like Uncle Abu
Talib, who was now his protector, were well disposed but
too good conservatives to abandon lightly the gods of
their fathers. Muhammad was doubtless counselled by the
doubters to walk warily and avoid trouble. Could he not
keep his revelations to himself instead of bringing em-
barrassment or worse upon his family?
The early converts were obliged to meet secretly. They
listened to Muhammad's sermons, prayed according to a
formula and postures he had devised for them, their faces
turned towards Jerusalem, and pledged themselves to ab-
stain from the particular sins he most inveighed against
idolatry, fornication, falsehood, theft, infanticide.
Muhammad's converts grew, and the revelations in-
creased. The passages of the Qur'an assigned to this early
period are few and short and deal mainly with three sub-
jects : the unity and attributes of God, morality and the
coming Judgment Day. His teachings about the first two
were the teachings of the Jews ; the third was the Christian
doctrine of the Resurrection, Judgment Day and the life
to come.
The sensual picture of paradise is presented as 'a gar-
den of delight existing for eternity ; below it flow cooling
streams, perpetual, and in it also are streams of water uh-
corrupted, and streams of milk whose flavour changes not,
[38]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
and streams of wine which are a delight to the drinkers,
and streams of purified honey. Those who dwell there will
enjoy fruits of every kind and have the forgiveness of
their Lord. Each of the blessed will recline upon a richly
decked bed, on either side a garden in which the fruits
grow within reach of his hands. Therein are maidens of
modest glances whom neither men nor jinn have touched
before. ... As though they were rubies or pearls.'
'Hell will be brought within sight of every beholder, on
Judgment Day, as a burning fire. Those who are damned,
whether man or jinn, remain in it for a long time, tor-
mented by flames, all escape from which is prevented by
long fetters. Above the hearts of the damned the fires of
Hell shall be raised on columns outstretched, behind which
there is no shadow or any protection against the flames, for
they throw off sparks like castles or like yellow camels.
The denizens of Hell shall taste no coolness, nor any
drink save boiling water and ichor, nor any food but
what chokes the eaters. All must pass through Hell, but
Allah delivers from it those whom He wishes. They are
those who have followed the way of Allah, but only for
them is intercession permitted.' 9 *
An allegorical interpretation of heaven and hell is held
by enlightened Moslems as by enlightened Christians. The
rude Arabs of Muhammad's day, however, could probably
only have grasped a sensual presentation as was accepted
by Christians up to quite recent times. But the sensual pres-
entation is only one side of the picture. Muhammad taught
a spiritual heaven, too, where there shall be no sin, where
the presence of the Highest shall infinitely transcend all
other joys, where all grudges shall be taken out of men's
hearts, and peace and concord shall reign.
With this vision of the life to come went an insistence
[39]
THE ARABS
on a life here below to be lived by a far stricter ethical
code than that to which the people were then accustomed.
But if all these teachings were already familiar enough
to tiny Jewish and Christian communities they were revo-
lutionary indeed to a great mass of the nomadic inhabit-
ants of Arabia who lived segregated lives, many indeed
seldom if ever visiting Mecca or Yathrib or any other big
settlement, and the bulk of them not caring for religion at
all, certainly not for the gods of the settled Arabs.
Muhammad's consuming desire to save the Meccans
from their sins was in vain. One revelation referred to the
Ka'ba, where the idols were enshrined, as 'the House of
God', but if the Meccans mistook the toleration of their
sanctuary for a gesture or a sop, it was in any case insuf-
ficient for them. They scoffed at this fellow townsman of
theirs setting up as a prophet Muhammad, one of them-
selves, Muhammad, whom they remembered as a boy,
whose father and mother they knew and everybody con-
nected with him. It was this individual that now dared to
be contemptuous of the deities sacred to them all and dared
suggest abolishing the source of the pity's prosperity. They
must threaten him. They bullied and mocked his converts,
ill-treating those who had no family or tribal connections
to afford them protection. The plight of these followers of
Muhammad estimated in the fifth year of his ministry at
eighty-three families, perhaps six hundred souls grew
more serious. Taking counsel with the Prophet, they de-
cided upon flight to Abyssinia. There they went, were sym-
pathetically received by its Christian king and given
asylum.
Muhammad and a tiny band of faithful followers re-
mained in Mecca. But he was, figuratively speaking, driven
underground for the time. The Meccans were alarmed by
[40]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
the growth of the movement and were resolved to crush it.
The Quraish were intent on silencing Muhammad or ex-
pelling him or worse. They issued an ultimatum to his sec-
tion of the tribe, the Bani Hashim, demanding that he
should be outlawed. The Bani Hashim were unbelievers,
but to withdraw their protection from one of their own
number at the dictation of others would have been a shame-
ful thing to do ; the issue for them was a different one.
They proudly refused to outlaw Muhammad; in other
words declined to abrogate their right to revenge one of
their members. The Quraish thereupon renounced inter-
course with them, commercial and social.
Persecution was hence the lot of any who dared follow
the Prophet. The loss of his beloved wife, Khadija, and
his uncle and protector, Abu Talib, his strong shield and
a counsellor of the Bani Hashim, made his position parlous
indeed. Mecca was no longer safe for him. He turned for
a refuge to the neighbouring city of Taif, but Taif , too,
proved hostile, and he returned once more to Mecca un-
der the protection of an influential heathen merchant. Ten
years had passed since the commencement of his ministry.
He was now fifty: he had few friends and few followers.
Two years longer he remained in Mecca, but he had to ex-
ercise great care, though he was free to address himself
to pilgrim visitors, and if these generally treated him with
indifference or ridicule and the Meccans still reviled and
persecuted him, his converts increased.
One day a party of pilgrims arrived who listened to the
preacher with more than ordinary interest. They had come
an eleven days journey from neighbouring Yathrib, a city
to the north, that had had its Jewish sect for hundreds of
years and a city whose citizens are thought to have had no
love for the Meccans. To these pilgrims the Islamic mes-
[41]
THE ARABS
sage made an appeal. They felt drawn to the saintly man
who delivered it and was the object of Meccan persecu-
tion. During their sojourn they came more and more under
Muhammad's influence. Their conversion, indeed, was to
be the turning point in the fortunes of the whole move-
ment.
These Yathrib converts went back to their city carrying
with them the tidings of a new-found salvation and of a
religious wonder. They yearned for the fellowship of the
great teacher and began to consider how they could per-
suade the elders of the city to allow him to come and settle
in their midst.
Muhammad, as we have seen, had of late been living on
sufferance in Mecca. Mecca was solid against this, the
greatest of her sons. The adage that no man is a prophet
in his own country might well have been said of Muham-
mad up to this time. Hostility had never abated to this
renegade^citizen, guilty of deserting the city's deities, this
man who dared imply that the Arabs of past ages were
ignoramuses and fools ; how could Meccans feel anything
but loathing for such imputations and repugnance for their
author 1
Two years thus passed. The Yathrib converts had come
to the Mecca Fair again, this time bringing with them an
invitation to Muhammad to return with them for good.
A secret meeting was called and a solemn promise of pro-
tection and succour given. He was ready, nay, eager but
felt he could not abandon his Meccan followers. These in
any case had small reason for wishing to remain behind.
They therefore decided to fly too. They left as gradually
and as unobtrusively as possible. The Prophet himself re-
mained to the end, then he, too, crept away in disguise,
eluding those more extreme Meccan elements who sought
[42]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
to slay him. For two days he hid in a cave outside Mecca,
then continued his perilous flight (hijra 3 ) northwards
along the coast. Sixteen days later he entered Yathrib,
perhaps quietly and unnoticed, though one tradition gives
him a public entry riding a she-camel, his turban flying
ominously in the breeze like a standard, and being hailed
with acclamation by five hundred citizens who had come
out to welcome him. Yathrib in any case had done well.
She had gained for herself the title to be known as 'The
City of the Prophet' ; in Arabic Medinat al Nabi, soon to
be shortened to Medina, as we know it today.
The people of Medina who sympathized with the
refugees gave them of hospitality; those who did not suf-
fered them with an ill grace. Some there were who opposed
them and intrigued against them, and among this number
were the Jews. At the outset a plot of ground was pro-
vided, and on this was built the Prophet's house and the
first mosque, the two possibly under one roof, the mosque
being a simple room in which a palm tree served the pur-
pose of chair or pulpit as befitted the essential puritanism
of the Prophet's teachings. Revelations came, converts
multiplied.
For ten years Medina was the home of the Prophet and
the refuge of his followers. He continued throughout this
'The hijra is the starting point of the Islamic Era. Such manner of dating
differs conspicuously from that of our Christian calendar. We date our era
from the birth of Christ, of course, but the Moslems do not date theirs from
the birth of Muhammad or even from the year in which he commenced his
ministry. They date it from the year of his flight to Medina (from the hijra,
hence A.H.) when he had reached the age of fifty-two. This reckoning is not
without significance, for the year of flight marks the year when Muhammad
first enjoyed 'temporal protection to preach openly. 3 Islam was to become
a theocracy, temporal power to have a valid and intimate connection with
instituted religion, and the orthodox Islamic tradition, right down to the
War, has been that the strongest temporal Islamic power, latterly Turkey,
was the appropriate seat of the Prophet's successor the caliph.
[43]
THE ARABS
time with unabated vigour to teach the message which was
being revealed to him. He taught men to pray 4 and in-
spired them to lead better lives. He taught the wayward
Arabs respect for authority. These ten years were also
to witness the development of the movement from a reli-
gion to a theocratic state. The faithful, hitherto a perse-
cuted minority, became involved in a series of military
operations that resulted in their becoming a majority: the
Prophet, hitherto missionary, became soldier and states-
man, too, which, at the end of his life, led to a temporal
mastery not only of Mecca and Medina, but of the Yemen
southwards and Najran.
The early revelations which had counselled liberty of
conscience and religious toleration had been utterly in-
acceptable to the unbelieving Meccans. They had hounded
the Prophet forth, they had sent an embassy off to Abys-
sinia demanding the expulsion of his followers, and now
they stretched forth their arm to strike at the movement
that, to their alarm, was growing in Medina.
The enmity of the Meccans was a perpetual menace.
Muhammad as a God-fearing man would have preferred
peace, but as a good Arab was not for peace at any price.
The Moslems believed that the Meccans were set upon
their extermination. Islam must now draw the sword in
defence of itself.
Persecution made Islam militant. To the Arabs of all
time battle had been an honourable arbiter. The Arabs
were a warlike people. They possessed the manly virtues.
'The sword is the key of heaven and of hell; a drop of
blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms,
is of more avail than two months of fasting and prayer :
*In the second year at Medina a revelation changed the direction of
prayer from facing Jerusalem to facing Mecca.
[44]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at the Day
of Judgment his wounds shall be respendent as vermilion
and odoriferous as musk and the loss of his limbs shall be
supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.' To ascribe
this to the Prophet himself, as Gibbon does, is inconsistent
with the revelations in which peace is exalted, yet the
Arab writers who came to compose in this vein with the
zeal of patriotism or devotion give us an insight into the
psychology of the desert man who was soon to sweep across
the world and make himself master of it.
The intrigues of the Meccans with the faction in Medina
opposed to Muhammad grew from provocation to threat.
A revelation came, justifying recourse to the sword under
the compulsion of tyranny, but it was a qualified use of the
sword, justifying defence but not attack. This led the
Prophet to despatch reconnoitring parties from time to
time to keep a watch on the enemy's movements, such par-
ties being given instructions to avoid collisions. One party,
however, responding to its old-time impulses, raided a
caravan of the Quraish, killed a Meccan and took two
other prisoners. Now the raid in Arabia is the equivalent
of war. By desert canons, then as now, one is as honour-
able with them as the other is with us : for the spoils are
taken in combat, a feature differentiating it from petty
theft, which to the Arabs of all ages is wholly despicable.
In a hungry land raiding is a natural condition, and, as
with aggression in Western war, the motive is material
self-interest.
Muhammad no sooner heard of this aggression than he
condemned it ; it had indeed taken place in defiance of his
orders. But even now, had the Quraish been as peacefully
disposed as the Prophet the matter could have been com-
posed amicably by the normal payment of blood money
[45]
THE ARABS
and restitution of the spoils. 5 This course the Quraish
spurned. The incident gave them the pretext for war.
Thus in the second year of Muhammad's exile a thou-
sand Meccans marched north to encounter the Prophet
and three hundred men at a well, not far from Medina,
called Badr. Not only numerically were the odds over-
whelmingly against the Moslems, but the Meccans were
far better equipped. The Prophet retired into a small hut
and offered up special prayers, then emerged, reciting the
Qur'anic verse, revealed long since : 'Soon shall the hosts
be routed, and they shall turn their backs.' 4 *
It was a custom in Arab warfare of old, as a prelude to
battle, for a champion from each side to enter the lists
in individual combat. Of Badr Arab tradition records three
such combats, and in each case the Moslem was the victor.
The Meccans, goaded to fury, fell upon their adversaries,
but in vain, and at last were obliged to fall back for lack
of water and, being better mounted, were able to retire
from the field, leaving, however, seventy killed and as
many wounded. Although this was the first battle of its
kind between those who had been exiled from Mecca and
those who had exiled them, believers and unbelievers, Mu-
hammad commanded the kindly treatment of prisoners,
and some of these remained and embraced Islam. Others,
who were rich, were ransomed ; those who were poor were
freed. The success of Badr naturally had an influence on
Medina opinion. Success against such odds connoted divine
division of the spoils in the wars to follow the Prophet's death,
whether of gold or silver, captives, cattle or merchandise, was determined
by the division that followed this incident at Nakhla. One fifth was the
Prophet's share and set aside for pious and charitable purposes; the re-
mainder was equally divided between the raiders; later practice gave a
double share to a horseman as an inducement to increase the mounted arm,
and the share of the slain went to the widows and children.
[46]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
blessing; those Moslems who fought at Badr were hon-
oured throughout life and those who were slain counted
martyrs.
Mecca, smarting under the defeat, raised a force of a
thousand horse and two thousand foot to move against the
city that dared give Muhammad protection. Now Medina
was not a commercial city like Mecca, but a group of vil-
lage settlements that lived by agriculture, so that its out-
lying fields were exposed to the ravages of an attacker, and
Muhammad, doubtless with this consideration uppermost
in his mind, marched out with his smaller force of only a
thousand men to outlying Uhud. The Meccans advanced,
accompanied by their women. ( I have myself witnessed the
women of the Bani Bu Ali tribe in southeast Arabia run-
ning at the heels of their advancing men, carrying full
water skins. Another custom of the Arabs of antiquity
was for men to go into battle shouting the names of their
sisters that they might do nothing ignoble in the face of an
enemy.)
Before the battle was joined three hundred of Muham-
mad's force defected under the leadership of a hypocritical
ally, yet so valiantly did the Moslems fight that the enemy
at last withdrew, having gained no advantage. Rumour
had reached them that Muhammad had been slain he had
indeed fallen to a javelin wound, but a faithful few had
rallied to his help and saved him so that the Meccans
left the field of Uhud with Badr unavenged.
Medina now lived under the continual peril of invasion.
The hostility of Mecca was implacable, and soon came
news of a great army assembling there with a large
Beduin contingent whose object was to crush Muhammad
once for all. All the resources of Medina were clearly
necessary to parry the coming blow. On this occasion there
[47]
THE ARABS
was no marching out as at Uhud. Not only were Muham-
mad's forces concentrated within Medina's defences, but
these defences were of a novel kind. A trench was dug
across the side of the city that was most exposed to at-
tack a practice of the Persians whence the battle that
ensued came to be known as the Battle of the Trench.
A tradition of prophetic vision recorded by Muhammad
Ali runs thus : 'In the course of the excavation they came
to a hard stone. All exerted themselves to their utmost but
they could not break it. It was therefore suggested to the
Prophet, who had chalked out the limits with his own
hands, to allow a slight deviation from the original plan.
Taking up a pickaxe he addressed himself to the task which
others had failed to accomplish. Getting down into the
ditch, he struck hard at the stone which gave way, emitting
at the same time sparks of fire, on which the Prophet,
followed by his companions, raised a cry of "God is Great"
and said that he saw in the spark that he had been awarded
the keys of the Palace of the Syrian King. A second stroke
and the stone was split, the same spark of light coming out.
Once more "God is Great" was shouted aloud, the Prophet
observing that he had been given the keys of the Persian
kingdom. The third attempt broke the stone to pieces, and
the Prophet announced to have seen the keys of Yemen
coming into his possession. Then he explained that he had
been informed that his followers would gain possession of
all those countries.' 6 4 *
The Meccans were now to advance. Although they
made no sustained attack, preferring the methods of
siege, troops of their horsemen made occasional sorties
6 Many Arabs hold that the military enterprises which subsequently
brought about the spread of Islam across the world were ordained by God
and known to the Prophet: to them the true world religion, Islam, was in
full vigour from the moment of its revelation.
[48]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
only to withdraw from the trench under a shower of ar-
rows and stones. A deciding handicap was a shortage of
supplies, for the Medina gardens failed to yield that
which was expected of them. This also affected the de-
fenders, and both forces would have welcomed an honour-
able compromise, but the supply factor was favourable to
the besieged, and a tempest of wind, hail and rain arose
to scatter the tents of the Meccans. They had already suf-
fered from desertions and were compelled ignominiously
to withdraw*
The course of events, not of Muhammad's seeking, had
elevated him to the leadership of Medina. His followers
had steadily been increasing, though a hostile faction still
existed and became active, particularly in times of crisis.
Belonging to this faction were the Medina Jews, and
Muhammad had to turn aside from time to time to punish
them for their treachery. Following Badr he had banished
the prime offenders to Syria ; from the Battle of Uhud he
had occasion to expel another Jewish tribe, who had
sought to encompass his murder, to neighbouring Khai-
bar; and after the Battle of the Trench he laid siege to
the fastnesses of the intriguing Quraiza. After their sur-
render Arab tradition makes them prefer that their fate
should be settled not by the Prophet, but by a Jewish
convert to Islam. His judgment was duly carried out. It
accorded with the Jewish way prescribed in the Scriptures
of Deuteronomy XX, 13, 14 the males (three hundred)
were put to death, females and children were enslaved,
their property was confiscated. 4 *
Within a year of the Battle of the Trench Muhammad
set forth from Medina to visit Mecca for the purpose of
making the pilgrimage. Although the few hundred faithful
followers who accompanied him went unarmed the Mec-
[49]
THE ARABS
cans were suspicious. They marched out with Beduin
allies to block the Prophet's approach. He was forbidden
entry. A ten years truce was entered into between the two
cities, and an agreement made by which Muhammad
should withdraw on this occasion but would be allowed to
make the pilgrimage the following year, provided his
followers again came unarmed and remained for no more
than three days.
Pilgrimage time came round again. The Prophet set
forth for Mecca with two thousand devoted followers.
This time there was no hindrance, and he performed the
traditional ceremonies. But his outward homage at the
holy shrine that contained the idols concealed an inward
resolution to sweep them away when the favourable hour
should strike. The strength and devotion of his following
and his own bearing impressed the Meccans, and two
eminent converts were made, Khalid ibn al Walid and
Amr ibn al As, destined to be great military leaders in
wars of world conquest.
The Prophet returned to Medina, of which place he
was now the master, and according to Arab historians
forthwith despatched embassies to the great rulers of the
earth, the Byzantine emperor, the Chosroes of Persia, the
Aziz of Egypt, and the Negus of Abyssinia, summoning
them to accept God and His apostle. The fire-worshipping
Persian emperor is supposed to have treated the demand
with contempt, whereas the Christian Byzantine emperor
received the embassy favourably, but he must fain conceal
his hand because he feared his ecclesiastical hierarchy.
A tragedy, to which momentous consequences are at-
tached by Arab authorities, attended the return of this
mission. Muhammad's messengers were killed on the
Syrian border. It was a contravention of the laws of
[50]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
tribal morality, an act of war, A force of three thousand
men was hastily got together in Medina and marched
north. It encountered an unexpectedly large opposing
force of the lieges of Byzantium at Muta, just south of
the Dead Sea and after suffering the loss of three com-
manders was driven to retire on Medina.
During this time the Meccans had broken their truce
with Medina by killing an ally of the Prophet's and, al-
though offered alternative terms, preferred to accept the
consequences of their action. Losing no time, the Prophet
gathered ten thousand men, placed himself at their head
and marched southwards towards Mecca.
In spite of the way the Meccans had treated him
through life Muhammad, now an old man of sixty, bore
them no grudge. He forbore to declare war though his
object was investment. The city capitulated without a
blow, and the Prophet marched in. A general amnesty
was proclaimed for all but ten offenders. The Ka'ba was
purified by the destruction of Hubal and the other idols ;
the black stone of special sanctity which pilgrims had
been accustomed to stroke and kiss and which was said
to have been placed there by the prophet Abraham was
spared, the old ceremonies being incorporated into the
rites of the Islamic pilgrimage.
The conquest of Mecca had its inevitable moral effect.
Even the Quraish soon became converts, and if their idols
were destroyed before their eyes their material interests
were not only to be safeguarded under the new dispensa-
tion, but to be enhanced. The surrounding tribesmen were
stampeded by the conquest. Godless by inclination, they
would doubtless have sought their own advantage. At
first this led them into opposition, to support the intran-
sigeance of Taif, but within a year Taif had capitulated,
[51]
THE ARABS
and thus Muhammad lived to see even the surrounding
Beduin submit. Thus did the Prophet also become a
temporal ruler, the master of a state, the middle-western
province of Arabia, familiar to us today as the Hijaz.
The dissensions and the enmity which had divided the
settled man and the nomad, had divided Mecca and Me-
dina, were thus brought to an end. Unity took their place.
Rumour of an impending Byzantine invasion is held to
have led the Prophet to collect a force and march north
towards the Syrian border. The rumour proved insub-
stantial, and the Arabs swept through Jewish and Chris-
tian villages, subjugating them. The religious toleration
which Muhammad showed was an example which his fol-
lowers were faithfully to follow in the subsequent wars.
The inhabitants were not asked to forswear their religion,
and they were left in possession of their property; they
were compelled only to pay tribute.
The pilgrims to Mecca now contained an ever-increasing
majority of those professing the faith. It was as profitable
to be a Moslem now as it had been unprofitable in those
days of persecution before the hijra. Muhammad issued a
proclamation that only Moslems were in future to be per-
mitted to make the pilgrimage, and to this day no non-
Moslem has gone to Mecca for this purpose without
affirming his belief in Allah and His prophet.
It was one of Muhammad's last acts. On returning to
Medina from his final pilgrimage, his health declined and
he was overtaken by a mortal fever. For twelve days
he presided at public prayers, and three days later the
end came calmly. He died in the arms of his favourite
wife, A'isha, at the age of sixty-two in the year A.D. 632.
Our knowledge of Muhammad's life and works is de-
rived from Arab sources. There are no contemporary non-
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
Moslem authorities. Western authorities today suppose
that much of this knowledge derives from oral tradition,
cherished by companions, mostly illiterate and recorded
later by believers in much the same way as our Gospels.
This is not the view of pious Arabs. They believe that
his utterances were faithfully recorded verbatim at the
time, that the texts of the Qur'an were committed to
writing at the moment of revelation ; it was only the collec-
tion into book form that came about after the Prophet's
death. Significant, they hold, is the fact that Muhammad
ended his life in triumph, a national hero, a ruler as well
as a prophet, so that his every saying, every action, every
manner, every incident of his life would naturally have
been the object of interest and investigation; indeed, they
believe schools sprang up immediately after his death
dedicated to his service in which A'isha, his wife, and
Ali, his son-in-law, were foremost among the lecturers.
According to the Arabs 'more is known of the life and
character of Muhammad than of any other figure in his-
tory. 5
He was a man without pride, without ostentation, with-
out cant, not a mealymouthed man, but a strong, just man
and a generous man. Such indeed was the munificence of
his good works that he died in debt, some of his belong-
ings in pawn with a Jew among them his only shield,
for which he obtained three measures of meal.
By the standards of his people and times Muhammad
lived a normally moral life. He was a bachelor till twenty-
six, the husband of one wife till fifty. After Khadija's
death he married a second wife, Sauda, in Mecca, and
from the time he came to Medina, at the age of fifty-two,
he acquired many wives. Eleven of them occupied cham-
bers around his house at one time, a revelation having
THE ARABS
absolved him from the limit of four wives which the revela-
tions imposed upon his followers. All appear to have been
elderly widows except A'isha, the daughter of Abu Bakr,
who was nine when she was betrothed to Muhammad and
fourteen at the time of marriage (a normal age in Arabia,
where twenty is considered passee the oriental girl of
fourteen is indeed the equal of the European one of
eighteen) . The elderly wives were widows of companions
who had fallen in the wars, and Muhammad married
them to shelter them and provide them with homes. None
bore children; indeed, after Khadija, A'isha is thought
to have been Muhammad's only real wife, except the Copt
slave girl, Mary, who was one of the presents sent by
Makawkis of Egypt in reply to the embassy summoning
him to accept the Prophet's divine mission. Mary Mu-
hammad freed before marrying and she won favour in
his sight by bearing him a son, but the child died in
infancy. Khadija, the wife of the Prophet's middle age,
bore him four sons and four daughters. The sons all died
in infancy, and the daughters all predeceased Muham-
mad except the youngest one, Fatima, who as the wife of
Ali became the mother of a considerable posterity.
Muhammad despised pomp and lived an utterly simple
life. Wine he forbade. Barley bread, dates and water,
milk and honey formed his simple diet, but mortification
of the flesh was no part of his religion. Except for the
Fast of Ramadhan it is thought to have been odious to
him, and Moslem fakirs and dervishes made their ap-
pearance only some centuries after his death, and then
not generally among the Arabs. He lived in great humility,
performing the most menial tasks with his own hands ; he
kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, patched
his own garments and cobbled his own shoes. There was
[54]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
an essential puritanism in his system. Divine revelation
forbade the believer to wear either gold or silk a curb
on covetous passions.
His moral teachings sprang from a pure and exalted
mind aflame with religious enthusiasm. From being a
persecuted preacher, exiled to Medina, he rose, by a
militant statecraft the Arabs believe a civil war not of
his choosing to political power.
This he enjoyed only in the last few years of his life,
and this he used for the spiritual and material welfare
of Moslems. He must clearly have acted in accordance
with the best traditions of the Arabs, for without real
sincerity and sustained goodness on his part those first
ardent converts would not have stood by him through all
the vicissitudes of a crowded and critical twenty-three
years. His authority clearly sprang from moral as well
as intellectual qualities.
Muhammad, as we saw, made no claims to miracles,
yet the sociological reforms he was instrumental in setting
in motion among his fellow countrymen were little short
of the miraculous. Before his coming the Arabs, animated
by the fiercest passions, were immemorially at feud one
with another. The incident following the Battle of Uhud
when Hind tore the liver out of Hamza and chewed it,
strung his internal organs and garlanded herself, shows
the manner of man to whom Muhammad brought the
message of brotherhood.
Another barbarous practice of the Arabs of those times
was that of putting girl children to death at birth a
practice found today only in China, engendered there as
in Arabia of the seventh century by hunger and poverty.
To this day you do not congratulate the wild man of the
deserts on the birth of a daughter: it is a matter that may
[55]
THE ARABS
with propriety be passed over in silence. One revelation
deplores this attitude : 'And when a daughter is announced
to one of them his face becomes dark and full of anger.
He hides himself from the people because of the evil of
that which is announced to him. Shall he keep it with
disgrace or bury it in the dust.'
The tradition remains of a companion who used to
weep in repentance at having buried so many of his female
children alive. This horrible practice the Prophet de-
nounced and swept away. 'Whoever has a female child,'
says a tradition ascribed to him, 'and does not bury her
alive, nor hold her in contempt, nor prefer his male child
to her, shall enter Paradise.'
His humanity was all embracing. He never ceased to
champion the cause of woman against the ill-treatment of
his contemporaries. He condemned the practice of inherit-
ing the widow with the rest of an estate as though she were
a chattel. She must not be a despised creature to be
ashamed of and to be ill-treated any more, but a person
to love and cherish and respect : at her feet lay the gates
of paradise.
And so with slavery : he laboured for the amelioration
of the slaves' lot, liberating any that were presented to
him. He taught that the slave mother should never be
separated from her children a precept not always ob-
served in later-day Arabian slavery extolled the freeing
of slaves as a penance, lauded the feeding of the orphan
in times of famine and 'the poor man who lies in the
dust.'
Muhammad was clearly a man of sound judgment. He
was a realist. He was a gradualist. To have attempted to
achieve his reforms in a single stroke would doubtless have
imperilled them. He first forbade his followers' using
[56]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
wine before coming to prayers lest they should not under-
stand what they were saying ; at a later stage came total
prohibition. Similarly polygamy without limit was radically
restricted, 'You may marry as many wives as two or three
or four; but if you fear you cannot be equitable between
them, then marry only one. And you will never be able
to be just between women no matter how much you may
strive to do so.' Modern Moslem thought is persuaded
that Muhammad was working towards the abolition of
slavery and the institution of monogamy, but whether or
not, the Arabs of his day were not ripe for these things.
What he achieved, however, was a great and wonderful
advance*
The obstacles that stood in the way of his aims Mu-
hammad overcame as a practical man. A visionary ideal-
ism would have left untouched the savage tribal culture
of seventh-century Arabia. Muhammad had recourse to
the sword, but his supposed zest for war is scouted by
Arabs as a Western prejudice. And in spite of fond boasts
of their own prowess in battle the theme of so much of
their verse they are unanimous in the assertion that
Muhammad never killed a man with his own hands. To
him war was utterly distasteful, and he only took up arms
and justified the taking up of arms in self-defence. Tight
in the way of God against those who attack you but begin
not hostilities,' he said. 'Verily God loveth not the
aggressors. . . . And if they incline towards peace thou
shalt also incline towards it.'
The revelations which are ascribed to the early period
before the Prophet's flight from Mecca had, as we have
seen, chiefly to do with faith and morals, but as a com-
munity professing Islam grew in Medina, so the divine
revelations came to take on a political character. Positive
[57]
THE ARABS
secular as well as religious enactments are found in the
part of the Qur'an assigned to the post-hijra period. Each
revelation is said to have arisen out of some particular
political situation. 6 *
The great bulk of the Moslem scriptures is, however,
devoted to the inculcation of high moral precepts. The
essential teachings are a belief in an all-embracing universal
God, one and indivisible, merciful and compassionate; a
belief that God has revealed Himself through the
prophets (in other words, a revealed religion) ; a belief in
a future life to which death is the portal and which is a
continuation of the present life. In a fundamental sense,
therefore, Islam has a large common basis with our own
religion, both, of course, having their roots in Judaism.
The Moslem differs from the Christian in that he denies
that God sent His Son into the world for its redemption
by His suffering, for the Divine Essence was neither be-
gotten nor can beget. The Moslem conception of God
is therefore less personal than ours: His decrees are
absolute and predestined and not to be swayed by inter-
cession or sacrifice. There are, therefore, no priests in
Islam, no confession, no intercession, no absolution, no
sacrificial redemption.
The Qur'an denies that Jesus Christ or any other person
can be the Son of God; asserts, however, that Jesus was a
true prophet, born of a virgin, and could work miracles.
It denies His crucifixion; instead His enemies were per-
mitted by God to crucify a criminal or a phantom, believ-
ing it to be Jesus. Jesus was a mortal man and on the
Day of Judgment will reproach both the Jews and the
Christians, the one for denying Him, the other for deify-
ing Him. Yet Jesus, according to Muhammad, was a true
prophet every bit as much as himself, and references to
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
Him, both in the Qur'an and by Islamic usage, take the
form of 'Our Lord', while His Mother is never referred to
except as 'Our Lady/ When the name of either is men-
tioned, moreover, it is followed by the phrase 'on whom
be peace.' It seems quite clear that Muhammad treated
Christians with tolerance and respected their religion and
their places of worship* It was the misunderstanding and
misrepresentation that grew out of subsequent wars that
led to the bitterness and the hatred, now happily dying.
A fundamental difference between Moslem and Chris-
tian is in the respective attitude towards their scriptures.
To the former the Qur'an is the very word of God, so
that the contradictions between it and the Bible are, in a
Moslem's eyes, God's rectification of the mistakes that
have crept into the scriptures of Christians and Jews.
This conception does not invalidate the earlier prophets'
message, for their message and Muhammad's message
are held to have been the same: the earlier scriptures be-
came corrupted and hence Muhammad's mission to restore
them. Muhammad was not teaching a new religion : it was
but an extension or a modification of the earlier religions,
which he pronounced equally God-revealed in their pristine
purity.
On Muhammad's lips our familiar Bible stories seem
to us to be garbled versions, and Western authorities sup-
pose that they were forms current in the largely unlettered
Arabian society of Muhammad's day, for by tradition the
Jews of Arabia had in many places forgotten the Hebrew
tongue and had become illiterate. Moslems answer that
the change will be found to be in the interests of reason,
morality or decency; that according to the Qur'an the
prophets did not commit the sins attributed to them in
the Bible.
[59]
THE ARABS
More difficult of acceptance in the West is the form of
creation 'jinn', which the revelations showed God to have
created out of fire before He created man out of clay,
among whom are believers and unbelievers and to whom
God sent apostles. As with Christian scholars faced in the
Gospel with first-century beliefs in evil spirits, such as
figure in the Gadarene miracle, so also modern Moslem
scholars look for a more rational interpretation of 'jinn'
than the traditionally accepted one.
But orthodoxy demands of the Moslem the acceptance
of the Qur'anic revelations in their entirety. To the faith-
ful the Qur'an is not a man-made book, not the work of
Muhammad, who was just its passive medium, nor of
later compilers. It is not merely divinely inspired as our
Christian Scriptures are held to be. It is in itself divine. 'Its
substance is uncreated and eternal subsisting in the Es-
sence of the Deity. Its text is incorruptible.' Its ordinances,
its precepts and its sanctions are held to have been not
revealed for the exclusive regeneration of seventh-century
Arabia, they are applicable to all countries and all times
the revealed word of God in man's midst.
The form and institutions of Islam came to take a final
shape during those last ten years of the Prophet's life.
Five cardinal tenets emerged :
(1) Acceptance of the unity of God and the message
of Muhammad.
(2) The due performance of daily prayers.
(3) The poor rate.
(4) Fasting throughout the month of Ramadhan.
(5) Making if possible the pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Moslem rule of life is no easy one. Alcohol is for-
bidden. The poor rate is an obligation rather than a merit,
for religious law has decided that one fortieth of the
[60]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
believer's income is the property of the poor: to give less
is a sin, to give more is alms a meritorious act and a
pious duty. The Fast of Ramadhan, when no morsel of
food, no drop of drink may pass a believer's lips between
dawn and sunset, is more rigorous, particularly in hot
climates, than our Lenten Fast. Prayer five times a day
is de rigueur wherever the believer finds himself at the
appointed hour between dawn and early evening 7 in the
street, at his house, his place of business or elsewhere ; he
must suspend his activities, free his mind from worldly
thoughts and perform the set devotions. The spirit of
Islam in its pure religious conception, like that of Chris-
tianity, is to elevate and ennoble the believer.
As has been noticed, Islam is not a sacerdotal religion.
It condemns mediation between man and his Maker, Vho
knew him before he was born, and is closer to him than
his jugular vein.' Any Moslem of good character can
lead the prayers in the mosque, though in practice an imam,
a leader recognized for his piety and scholarship and
devoted to the service of the mosque, does so. 8 It is a
simple, dignified form of worship following a set formula
of postures and devotions 9 (petitions and responses faintly
suggesting an unintoned litany in the English church serv-
ice). The worshippers do not bare their heads; they re-
move their shoes or sandals, perform certain ritualistic
ablutions and then assemble to form a long line facing
Mecca (the Ka'ba), the leader taking up a position a
little to the front of them in the centre.
7 (i) Dawn or sunrise. (2) Midday. (3) Midafternoon. (4) Sunset.
(5) Evening (bedtime).
8 Friday is the Moslem day for congregational worship in the mosque,
corresponding to the Saturday of the Jews, the Sunday of Christians.
9 For those here given I am indebted to my friend Mr Mahmood Zada,
of the Royal Legation of Sa'udi Arabia in London.
[61]
THE ARABS
Posture i. They stand in a reverent way, with the
palms of their hands raised to the ears.
Affirmations and prayers in a low reverent voice.
f God is greater than all else'
Posture 2. Still standing, the arms are lowered and
the right hand placed over the left one.
f Glory and praise to Thee, O God! Blessed is Thy name and ex-
alted is Thy Majesty. There is no one worthy of worship and service
but Thee. In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Praise be to God the Lord of the Worlds, the Merciful, the Com-
passionate. The Master of the day of Judgment. Thee, O God, Thee
only do we worship, and Thee only do we beseech for help. Guide
us unto the right path, the path of those Thou hast blest, not of those
with whom Thou art displeased, nor of those who have gone
astray.'
The worshipper then recites a portion of the Qur'an he
has committed to memory, e.g.
Say f Verily my prayers and my worship, my life and my death are
unto God; the Lord of the Worlds. No associate has He. Thus have
I been commanded and I am the first to surrender myself unto Him!
'God is greater than all else.'
Posture 3. Bodies are bent forward at right angles,
the hands are lowered and placed on the knees.
'Glory to my Lord, the Exalted.'
A bow that is repeated twice more, each time with the
same words.
Posture 4. The standing position is resumed.
f God accepts him who is grateful to Him.
O our Lord! All praise be to Thee.
God is greater than all else!
Posture 5. The worshippers next kneel down, their
bodies bowed over, supported with the hands on the
[62]
THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
ground, palms downwards, their heads bowed reverently,
so that their brows touch the ground.
'Glory to my Lord, the Most High?
A bow that is repeated twice more, each time with the
same words and ending
'God is greater than all else?
Posture 6. A sitting-kneeling position follows with
the hands resting on the knees.
f Glory to my Lord, the Most Exalted/
(repeated thrice)
'God is greater than all else!
Posture 7. The words and obeisances as in Posture 5.
Posture 8. Is like Posture 6 and concludes the first
phase of the devotions and is called a Rakat. Prayers are
some of two, some of three, some of four Rakats. To end
with, a prayer is said for the Prophets, the faithful and for
the worshippers in some such form as the following
'Homage be to God and all sincere worship is unto Him.
f Peace and the mercy of God and His blessings be upon thee,
O Prophet! Peace be upon us and all righteous servants of God.
e l bear witness that there is but one God and that Muhammad is
His servant and His messenger.
'May it please Thee, O God, to be gracious to Muhammad and
the followers of Muhammad as Thou wast gracious to Abraham
and the followers of Abraham and to bless Muhammad and the fol-
lowers of Muhammad as Thou didst bless Abraham and the fol-
lowers of Abraham* for surely Thou art Praised and Magnified*
This is usually followed by
f O Lord! Grant that I may always observe my prayers and that
my offspring may do so also and accept, O our Lord, this supplica-
tion of mine. Our Lord! Forgive me and forgive my parents and all
believers on the day of reckoning.'
[63]
THE ARABS
And finally the worshippers turn their heads to right
and left with the greeting
'Peace be with you, and the mercy of Allah/
POSTURES OF PRAYER
D. S. Margoliouth's Mohammed.
courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons.
[6 4 3
CHAPTER III
Arab World Conquest Eastwards
THK
PROPHET was dead. And now the rude Arabs were
to surge out of Arabia under the banner of Islam and
vanquish the great nations of the earth and set going a
movement that went on for upwards of a century to
follow, which history remembers as the wars of the
Saracenic expansion. (See map at end of book.)
The traditional view that the Arabs, following the
birth of Islam, were fired by religious zeal to march forth
on a mission of proselytizing the world is no longer ac-
ceptable. Although Arabs themselves believe that the
widespread propagation of the faith, of which they were
the militant instruments, came about as God willed, it is
extremely unlikely that the Beduin hosts at the time of
the Prophet's death had any strong spiritual convictions;
and Arab authorities, moreover, tell us that the wars
were precipitated by acts of aggression on the part of their
enemies, that the early expedition against Syria was to
check the depredations of the Christian Roman Empire
against peaceful Moslems over the border, that the raids
[65]
THE ARABS
against the Persians were the outcome of Persian provoca-
tion in eastern Arabia. The militant policy of the Medina
caliphate they thus hold to have been imposed by outside
political events, which necessitated massing the Arabs to
meet the invasion of two formidable powers.
Here we must part company with the Arab interpreta-
tion of history to follow those Western authorities who
believe that the Arab wars were in their inception neither
purely religious nor purely political, but chiefly economic. 7 *
It was hunger and want that drove the Arabs forth to
their wars of world conquest. Arabia was immemorially
hungry, as is reflected in her earlier population movements :
the Canaanite migration was one; possibly the Hyksos
and Akkadian movements were others. A historic role of
hers seems to have been that of a human reservoir that
periodically overflowed, and in the centuries before the
Prophet there were signs of another welling up. South to
north waves of peoples from the decaying Yemen are
associated with the tradition of the bursting dam of
Mar'ib, and doubtless a steady spilling over of borderline
Arabs into the fertile plains of Syria and the Euphrates
Valley was always going on. Now in the new powerful
state that was emerging within Arabia the two old safety
valves that had relieved population-pressure infanticide
and internecine warfare were forbidden.
To return to that day in Medina when the Prophet
died. He left no son to succeed him. Tradition represents
his death as a surprise and a shock to the faithful, who
had come to regard him, in spite of his protestations, as
more than mortal man. He does not seem to have foreseen
a near end or to have named a successor, but among his
companions must have been those who thought on these
things. So long as he lived, however, personal rivalries lay
[66]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
dormant. His decease was now to raise the thorny issue of
succession.
The Prophet's nearest kinsman was Ali, his cousin and
'the legatee', the husband of his daughter Fatima, the
father of the Prophet's grandchildren, whom he was
known to love, the son of Abu Talib, who had shielded the
Prophet in his dark early days. Ali was one of the first
converts, too, and his zeal for the cause, both in peace and
war, had never wavered. His claims looked incontestable.
But Ali's enemies were many. The aged Abu Bakr, father
of A'isha, the Prophet's favourite wife, was an older and
more venerable companion. He, too, was one of the
earliest converts, and one on whose advice the Prophet was
known to have placed the greatest reliance. The issue was
decided by Omar, a companion of the greatest influence,
and Omar sided with Abu Bakr. Their more powerful and
active following lost no time in forestalling a feud and
rallying the faithful to one leader. They met and acclaimed
Abu Bakr khalifa (=caliph). This term, originally de-
noting no more than 'successor', came to be a title rivalling
'emperor' In majesty. Ali, greatly mortified that another
was preferred before him, retired for a time. The indecent
haste, as it seemed to him, of the selection has been sug-
gested as the reason for his precipitate burial of the
Prophet in the room where he died, though tradition has
it that Muhammad had expressed a wish that public cere-
monial attaching to a formal funeral should be avoided.
Arabia, according to an Arab view, had achieved some-
thing like unity under the Prophet's genius. Its tribes are
supposed already to have been in adherence; but now
some of them, supposing Islam to be dead with its founder,
seceded. Military expeditions had therefore to be sent
out from Medina to compel, at the point of the sword,
THE ARABS
the return of the renegades to the allegiance. This view
that Arabia, vast and uncontrollable land that it was,
should at the very outset have formed a political and re-
ligious entity is thought by Western authorities to be
historically improbable, for even Mecca itself and its sur-
rounding tribes were in opposition to the movement up till
a year or two before the Prophet's death. It is more prob-
able that at the time of Abu Bakr's succession only the
middle-western province about Mecca and Medina with the
neighbouring Yemeni and Nejdi tribes formed a Moslem
polity. Here indeed the Prophet had founded a theocratic
state, but only very suddenly and at the end of his life.
Except for the nominal adherence of Beduin tribes on its
borders, therefore, the greater part of the peninsula
would appear to have lain outside the pale of his political
dominion, and certainly not to have been deeply affected
as yet by the spiritual teachings of Islam.
Abu Bakr now found himself the temporal and re-
ligious head of this first Islamic state. The moment was
one when it would have been opportune to distract atten-
tion from the disintegrating effects of the Prophet's sud-
den and unexpected end, prudent to find active employment
for those Beduin who had been lured by its prizes to take
up a profession of arms in the service of the state.
For the tribes close at hand, who had become Moslems
from political expediency, promptly seceded on the death
of the Prophet to rally round other leaders pronounced
'false prophets' by the orthodox. Khalid ibn al Walid, who
had earned military distinction when serving with the
Prophet, was sent against those who deserted to one
named Tulaiha and later won renown as the 'Sword of
God', the greatest soldier in the Islamic cause. Khalid
passed on to deal equally successfully with still more for-
[68]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
midable opposition under another false prophet named
Musailima. These and other expeditions sent against the
seceders achieved their appointed end and extended the
dominion of Medina throughout the peninsula. Their
effect was to transform the wild Beduin into something
like military organizations and to spread the belief that
soldiers in the Islamic cause were licensed to plunder or
exact tribute from unbelievers with whom the Moslems
were at war, while to the pious, to die in the cause insured
the believer the delights of paradise. During the brief
caliphate of Abu Bakr the peninsula was brought under
one political hegemony; there were no tribes left within
whom it was lawful for others to attack. The Arabs were
a unity. The spoils of the raid could only legitimately be
looked for in the outside world. If in Medina and Mecca
a pure religious ardour found for the wars a religious or
a political mandate, the Beduin who waged them were
doubtless actuated by worldly considerations. Products of
a cruel environment and of ages of war, their resultant
psychology was such that it did not change in a flash with
the change of political or even religious allegiance.
Arabia's powerful neighbours, Byzantines and Persians,
had in the days of their strength been able to keep the
peninsular peoples pent up, but at the time of the Prophet
these powers themselves were declining. Their ancient
rivalry had grown into a death struggle of continuous
warfare. The year of the Prophet's birth coincided with
a Persian invasion of Syria, and Aleppo was in Persian
possession. While he was not yet thirty, maybe while
still away on that caravan visit to Syria undertaken at
the behest of his future wife, a Greek army was marching
into Persia to place its own protege on the throne. At
the time he was telling the unbelieving Meccans of those
[6 9 ]
THE ARABS
early visions caravans from Syria must have been bringing
news that the Persians were back again, overrunning Syria
and Palestine, invading Egypt and Asia Minor; these fol-
lowed shortly by news of a Byzantine army advancing
through Armenia to attack Persia in the rear and enter
the royal city of Dastagird. (See map B at end of book.)
At one period six sovereigns had ascended the throne of
Persia in the course of six months, so riven was she by
internal dissension. Both these great powers on Arabia's
borders were exhausted, their outlying dependencies in
chronic unrest from neglect and discontent. For them
there was a writing on the wall. The way was opening for
the hungry, virile and warlike Arab hosts. The old ram-
parts to the north had crumbled.
It was a mistake then to suppose that when these hosts
did first appear they came like Cromwell's Roundheads,
inspired with a fanatically religious mission. It was not
primarily a beneficent eagerness to share with others the
blessings of Islam that brought them. Nor indeed did they
come to impose Islam, for Islam in a political sense had
only recently been imposed on many of themselves.
We cannot suppose the Beduin to have been pious, God-
fearing zealots like the companions of the Prophet; they
were principally raiding bands of desert warriors whose
allegiance to the new state was based primarily on self-
interest. And whatever the higher motives of the caliphs
of Medina and the enlightened Moslems of the settle-
ments, there can be little doubt that the desert man himself
was principally inspired by the hope of plunder.
Those earlier expeditions of bona fide religious con-
verts, one under the leadership of the Prophet himself,
were clearly not proselytizing missions : for the Jews and
Christians subjugated were allowed to keep their own
[70]
ARAB WORLD CONQUESTEASTWARDS
religion if they cared to. What they must do, however
(for the Arabs conceived of themselves as being at war
with Byzantines) was to pay tribute. Higher motives can
scarcely be ascribed to later activities carried out by
desert warriors of less religious zeal and to whom, doubt-
less, Islam was primarily a political allegiance.
But however cause and purpose of the raiders them-
selves may for the most part have been economic, the
immediate and stupendous success met with gave the
movement a new impetus and a new goal. The possibility
of permanent conquest was forced upon the Arab imagina-
tion by the very feebleness of the resistance, so easily over-
come. The Arabs marched from victory to victory, from
ambition to ambition ; the modest pillaging raids grew to
be wars of territorial conquest; Arab sovereignty came
to be the inspiration of the desert hosts.
Before his death the Prophet had planned another
expedition against the Byzantine borderlands. This was
now allowed to go forward by Abu Bakr, while Khalid,,
less eminent for religious zeal than for military prowess,
next seized an opportunity of going off with five hundred
braves to raid Iraq, his appetite whetted for fresh fame
and riches. Khalid, on this latest adventure, had the luck
that proverbially attends the successful general. His ar-
rival at Hira, at this time the seat of a Christian bishop,
coincided with an upheaval in Persia. The garrison was
depleted and, though able to maintain itself within the
fortification, was powerless to issue forth for open war-
fare, so that the country round was at the raiders' mercy.
Hira was therefore well content to buy off the raiders and
promise to pay henceforward annual tribute as the price
of peace. The raiders thereupon withdrew, some to return
to their local tribes, while Khalid and the nucleus of his
THE ARABS
force turned north up the Euphrates, plundering as they
went, to join forces with other Medina elements operating
in Syria. For it was Syria rather than Iraq that loomed
large in Arabian eyes, and expeditions thither suffered
from no dearth of recruits. Had not the Prophet himself
shown the way ! And now Abu Bakr had sent three more
parties, said to number seven thousand tribesmen, one fac-
tion under the redoubtable Amr ibn al As, a leader whose
generalship in the annals of the conquest stands second
only to that of Khalid himself.
The native population of Syria, as the Arabs knew,
were alienated from their Greek masters the Byzantines.
These, embarrassed by financial difficulties arising out of
the Persian wars, were obliged to make economies, and
one of the most impolitic was to suspend subsidies to the
Beduin tribes on the Arabian borders. Disaffection was
the upshot, and the victims, although nominally Christian,
appear to have made common cause with the Medina
raiders an interesting commentary on the supposed
proselytizing fanaticism of the invaders.
The Arabs are not credited, at this stage, with having
any concerted tactical plans of campaign. Each tribe had
its own banner round which it rallied, while the leader
harangued his men before and during battle, urging them
on to valiant deeds. The old Arab tactics of the raid had
been a sudden charge, withdrawal, a return to the charge
and an exchange of arrows, when the weaker side would
perhaps submit in order not so to antagonize the stronger
as to be utterly despoiled. But the Arabs were quick to
learn more subtle and sounder tactics from the trained
Byzantine soldiery. Although as bowmen they were less
accomplished their skill and courage with sword and
lance established early superiority in close fighting.
[72]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
Compared with their adversaries, they were ill
equipped ; their bows, spears and lances were inferior, and
even slings are mentioned as part of their primitive
equipment. Only the commanders and a favoured few
could at first boast a coat of mail, though each man is
thought to have acquired a helmet, a breastplate and a
round shield. But the Arabs had not long to wait before
acquiring better arms from prisoners and the slain and
from armourers of the lands they conquered. They
soon learned, too, to adopt the Persian practice of digging
a defensive trench around an encampment when resting
for a long period. On the move the force divided itself
into a main body, flank guards and advance and rear
guard, the last named bringing up the baggage, war
stores, women and children, possibly also flocks and herds.
They seemed to have favoured a 'five' formation, and
drums were beaten, the stopping of which signified a halt.
The successful early raids had the effect of attracting
more and more Beduin adventurers from the deserts, so
that the Arab concentrations south of the Dead Sea as-
sumed alarming proportions, and they fed themselves by
ravaging southern Palestine. The emperor, greatly
alarmed, had sent his brother Theodoras south from
Damascus, and he temporarily forced the Arabs back into
their mountain valley bivouacs. Then a new factor came
into play. This was the redoubtable Khalid.
Khalid and his Arab braves, after Hira, had marched
up the Euphrates Valley, thence across to Palmyra, and
then appeared suddenly before Damascus in Theodoras'
rear* Eschewing what must have been a great temptation,
they turned aside and marched south through Trans-
Jordan to effect a junction with their Arab comrades. The
combined Arabs, probably led by Khalid, now hurled them-
[73]
THE ARABS
selves against the Byzantines, who had taken up a strong
position between Jerusalem and Gaza, and utterly de-
feated them. Theodorus fled from the field and was later
recalled to Constantinople, and the Arabs freely dispersed
themselves over the countryside of Judaea and Samaria.
Medina awaited the return of her raiding columns that
had left two years before, but she waited in vain. They
had set forth to plunder, they were staying to conquer.
Rich countries lay at their feet, far better blessed than
their hungry Arabian home. The sight of undreamed-of
prizes made of these barbarous invaders an invincible
host. Success in battle was changing their outlook. They
could not help seeing that a systematic occupation of these
fair lands was within their grasp.
At this stage, after a brief two years of office, the
Caliph Abu Bakr died in his modest house at Medina.
Again a successor must be chosen, and again Ali's claims
were set aside. The late caliph had taken upon himself to
nominate his own successor, and the matter was thus
taken out of the arena of party strife. Abu Bakr's nominee
was Omar ibn al Khattab, his own strongest supporter
against Ali's claims at the time of the Prophet's death.
Omar was a religious zealot and a man of resolute action,
a man whose sincerity won the approbation of the faithful
and the esteem of even the disappointed Ali, though later
his name came to be execrated by the great division of
Islam that championed Ali's cause.
From the first days of Omar's caliphate news of the
striking military successes of their raiding columns came
trickling back to the tribes in Arabia. The effect was
much like that of the discovery of a gold mine in a new
country. Arabia oozed forth its peoples, the young men
to join Khalid's forces, others with families to settle ad-
[74]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
venturously in the northern borderlands. The implications
of these early migrations, within ten years of the Prophet's
death, are significant. The Arabs were not proselytizing
bands ; they were not merely out for plunder. They were
already colonizing expeditions.
The weakness of the Hellenized garrisons and the
friendliness of the native peoples combined to bring a
great rallying and reinforcing of the Arabs. Palestine,
except for Jerusalem and a few coastal ports that could
be reinforced from Egypt, was already evacuated. Da-
mascus, the capital of Syria itself, became the Arab goal,
and thither they marched on the heels of the fleeing
Theodoras. Khalid, aided by malcontent Christian in-
habitants, actually marched into the city but could not
hope to hold it before a greatly superior Byzantine army
that now approached from the north, and he prudently
retired down the desert side of the Jordan.
In the valley of the Yarmuk he called a halt. The Byzan-
tine army approached from the west. The two forces
faced each other for a long period under the hot summer
sun a delay that favoured the Arabs, for they grew
stronger by a steady accretion from the desert, while the
enemy grew weaker by defection of native irregulars,
and soon the numerical strength was about equal. Khalid
having detached a part of his force to send it north to
cut off the enemy's retreat, himself attacked from a direc-
tion that forced Theodoras into a sector of the Yarmuk
where his position was tactically hopeless. Here the de-
fenders were thrown into great confusion, and the Arabs,
pressing their advantage with energy, obtained a decisive
victory: this famous Battle of the Yarmuk settling in
A.D. 636 the fate both of Syria and Palestine. The Arabs
marched on to Damascus to invest it a second time this
[75]
THE ARABS
time permanently. Catapults and mangonels that ejected
stones, fire and naphtha, whose use the Arabs had now
learned, were used against the gates in the walls of Da-
mascus, ineffectually it would seem, for the city is said to
have been taken by men who swam the moat on inflated
skins, flung ropes with running nooses over the turrets and
so hauled themselves up over the walls.
The Greeks suffered losses at Yarmuk from which they
never recovered, and the remnants of the imperial forces
retired northwards to the Taurus Mountains. The Arabs
quickly following up, Baalbek, Aleppo and Antioch fell
easily into their hands. A few Hellenized cities of Pales-
tine held out for a year or two longer, but the last of these,
Jerusalem, capitulated to the Moslems in 638 and Caesarea
in 640.
Consolidation of their gains was no difficult matter
for the Arabs. The native Semitic-speaking peoples,
Christian though they were, welcomed the Moslems as
deliverers an interesting commentary again on the sup-
posed proselytizing fanaticism of the conquerors. Nor is
the Syrian attitude to be greatly wondered at. Victims for
centuries of the ravages of Byzantine-Persian wars, now
subject to one power, now to another, their country had
been wrested from the Persians by the Emperor Heraclius
only ten years before the Moslem invasion. When at last
peace came they found themselves burdened by heavy
taxation and their Christian sectarianism penalized by
the Orthodox Greek State Church. 1 They had risen in
revolt; indeed, it had taken the emperor a year to raise
the force that faced the Arabs in the Yarmuk, and, as the
event showed, the Syrian irregulars had no heart for
Heresy in Egypt and Syria at this time weakened the Byzantine power
just as Arab nationalism weakened the Turkish power in the Great War.
[76]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
fighting. The Greeks had come to be hated far more than
the Arab invaders who, at this early stage, assured the
country complete religious freedom.
For the Arabs the mastery of Syria soon led to the
tail wagging the dog. Syria was obviously of more ac-
count than Arabia, Damascus and Jerusalem vastly su-
perior cities to Mecca and Medina, and the Caliph Omar,
shrewd man that he was, foresaw the inevitable displace-
ment of the political centre of gravity, which In fact took
place at no very distant date. The Arabs were notoriously
a race of individualists, and strong men would rise among
them and play for their own hands. Khalid the Conqueror
was known to be a member of All's party, and to have per-
mitted him to be governor would have made him powerful
indeed.
After Damascus fell Omar sent a trusted companion to
relieve Khalid of administrative duties. And now the
caliph decided to visit his army in the field.
Omar's visit was necessary to determine the manner
of government of the newly occupied territories and to
decide upon the disposal of lands. The division of spoils
of conquest, whether money, goods or captives, had re-
mained in the same proportions as decreed by the Prophet.
That is, one fifth went to the caliph at Medina, the
remainder was divided equally between the soldiers. But
spoils of land had not in the early days been envisaged.
The Caliph Omar saw that the acquisition and division of
land between the Arab soldiers would not only be a thorny
problem, but would lead to the political ends he most
wished to avoid. He wisely decreed that landed property
was not the right of the conqueror but belonged to the
original private holders, and that, where these were un-
believers, they must pay a special unbeliever's tax on it,
THE ARABS
the proceeds of which must be remitted to him at Medina.
He instituted another unbeliever's tax, a capitation tax.
The Syrians were largely exempted from the land tax be-
cause of their assistance in the wars of conquest, so that
Iraq, where the double tax was enforced, came later to
be the main source of the caliphate revenues at Medina.
In the light of the times the Christian Syrians must have
regarded the imposts as light indeed, probably more
favourable to the cultivator than the heavy war taxation
of the hated Byzantines, so that Omar's decree on the
land question was both benevolent and politic. On the
other hand, another Omar, Omar II, half a century later
imposed severe disabilities on subject peoples who would
not embrace Islam. Unbelievers must not ride in a be-
liever's presence. They might not wear the dress or the
arms of a Moslem. They must abase themselves and not
look to have their word believed against that of a Moslem.
If they were permitted to retain their churches and syna-
gogues they must cease using church bells or conches or
any other obtrusive call to worship offensive to Moslem
ears, and if they prayed they must do so under their
breath. The great Omar of Medina made no attempt to
upset the administrative machinery of local government
as the Arabs found it, for the Arabs at this time had
neither the education nor the experience to attempt recon-
struction, and they wisely left well alone.
It was Persia's turn next. The Persians were staggered
by the Byzantine collapse. Mesopotamia had not so far
been unduly harassed since Khalid's visit to Hira, for
raids in that region were not popular with the Beduin,
the opposition met with being far more formidable than
that in Syria. The conquest of Syria, the Persians saw,
would liberate a strong force for use against them, and
[78]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
soon an Arab army was marching down the Euphrates to
join hands with another from Arabia that was biding
its time west of the Euphrates. Qadisiya, not far from
Hira, was the Persian stronghold. Here the Arabs at-
tacked during a blinding sandstorm. Rustem, the Persian
general, was killed, and his force was routed. The Arabs,
pursuing, swept across the heart of Mesopotamia, crossed
the river Tigris to storm Mada'in, the twin cities of
Seleucia and Ctesiphon, the Persian winter capital. King
Yezdegird, whose hold on the throne was already pre-
carious and who feared assassination, did not attempt to
hold Ctesiphon 2 but fled, and so the wealth and treasure
of yet another capital city passed into the hands of the
Arabs.
The two battles of Yarmuk in Syria and Qadisiya in
Iraq 8 represent a turning point in the whole Arabian
movement. From now on a steady migration flowed out of
Arabia, never to return. Up to this point the Arabs had
been raiding columns based on Medina; henceforth they
were armies maintaining themselves in the field. In the
early days the raiders were adventurers picked up from
tribes here and there, growing in numbers as they marched
along; from now on whole tribes took part in large mili-
tary operations. The idea of dependence upon Medina
faded into the background ; a quickening ideal of Arabian
empire took its place.
The unprecedented success in Iraq led immediately to
the establishment of two military camps there, one at
Kuf a near old Hira, the other on a site where Basrah now
*The old arch of the Persian palace still stands on the Tigris banks. It
is the widest span of any brick arch in the world, and where the British
forces under General Townshend turned back in 1915-
s lraq, the Arab word, has now superseded the Greek term Mesopotamia.
[79]
THE ARABS
stands, and these camps, designed as bases of operations
against the Persians, in north and south, grew to be
great cities in succeeding centuries.
After his flight from Ctesiphon, Yezdegird held on
despairingly on the northern Mesopotamian-Persian bor-
der for more than two years, but his own unstable per-
sonal position, weakened further by abortive enterprises
against the invaders, led him to retire into Persia. Thither
the Arabs followed him and, coming up with his forces
near the royal city of Nihavand, once again gained a
decisive victory. Yezdegird saved his life by flight from
the field, only to lose it later by assassination.
Another Arab force operating from Basrah was mean-
while overrunning the southern provinces of Khuzistan,
and a sea assault was made from Oman on the islands
of the Persian Gulf and on the Persian coasts, an Omani
force marching inland to Persepolis, which city fell as
did many others.
The capture of Nihavand in A.D. 641 gave the Arabs
a strong Persian foothold, though it was'not until several
years more that they scaled the mountain barriers and
brought about the fall of Ispahan, Hamadan and other
garrisoned centres in the interior. Nor was the pacifica-
tion of Persia to be the easy matter that the pacification
of Palestine and Syria had been. In the Levant the Arabs
met with a welcoming reception from Semitic-speaking
peoples long subjected to foreign masters; in Persia they
met with stubborn resistance born of a different cultural
consciousness and of a proud imperial past. Indeed Persia
never became completely Arabicized, as were Syria and
Palestine, for her language and her institutions survived
the conquests; and, indeed, Islam itself came to undergo
a Persianized development that was to make Shi' ism the
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
great dissenting sect and one to which a considerable
minority of Moslems belongs to this day. 'Never has
captor more swiftly and subtly been captured by his captive
than Arabia by Persia,' says Dr Hogarth. 24 *
The Arabs, with astounding eclat, were conquering
Egypt at the same time as they were so successfully prose-
cuting their Persian campaign. The inception of that con-
quest is the subject of a jolly Arab tradition. Amr ibn al As,
most prominent of Khalid's lieutenants in Syria, conceived
of the conquest of Egypt, acted on his own initiative,
quickly raised a force from the Syrian garrisons and
marched, without as much as 'by your leave' from the
caliph. The caliph, on hearing of it, promptly sent orders
after the zealous Amr, commanding him to return unless
he was too far engaged In operations; and to meet the
situation the intrepid general with f his blind eye to the
telescope' as it were, speeded up his braves and crossed
the Palestine-Egyptian frontier before acquainting him-
self with his orders. On he went and abundantly justified
himself. Modern authorities are inclined to view this
tradition with their own blind eye to the telescope. 7 *
The conquest of Egypt was necessary to the safety of
Syria at this time, for the Byzantine fleet at Alexandria
was a continual menace to the coastal towns of Syria
and the means of reinvasion. The Egyptians were a sub-
ject people, too, and no happier under their Greek rulers
than the Syrians had been, and so were not any more likely
to resent a change of masters. Whether or not, Amr, at
the head of four thousand Arabs, crossed the Egyptian
frontier in A.D. 640, It was a small force for so great an
undertaking, but reinforcements of five thousand allowed
him to march on Heliopolis, where he encountered and
defeated the Byzantines. For a year or more he maintained
[81]
THE ARABS
himself in a fortified position at the head of the Nile delta
and then pushed on to lay siege to Alexandria, the capital.
During the long siege the unfortunate Emperor Heraclius
died in Constantinople, and the Egyptian patriarch, re-
turning thence, concluded a treaty with Amr by which
the Greeks agreed to cede Alexandria, and so Egypt
passed into the hands of its new Arab masters in the year
A.D. 642.
The headquarters of government were moved from
Alexandria to Fustat, a military camp that the Arabs had
just established in Egypt after the model of Kufa and
Basrah in Iraq and, like them, to grow in after years into
a mighty city Cairo. The year of its foundation was the
year that witnessed the overthrow of the Persian king at
Arab hands. It marked a period of amazing military
achievement; for during the lifetime of these two first
caliphs, that is to say, within twelve years of the Prophet's
death, the untutored Arabs of the desert had defeated the
armies of the two great contemporary empires of the
time, Persia and Byzantium, and had wrested from them
Syria, Iraq, western Persia and Egypt.
But imperial expansion meant embarrassment for the
Arabian caliphate. The days of the political domination
of Medina were numbered. Omar the Caliph, a man of
great capacity, doubtless foresaw it, but before it came
about he was able, by his edicts, to found the institutions
of the Islamic state in the occupied territories on a sure
foundation.
Omar's great task was completed before he fell,
stabbed to death by a Christian slave of Persian origin.
His successor in the caliphate was an unworthy one.
Othman was an aristocrat and a man of great piety, but
he was conspicuously ineffective. The high offices of state,
[82]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
both inside Arabia and without, were flooded by nominees
of his family or faction regardless of their abilities. The
followers of All accepted his unsatisfactory election by
a reluctant vote of a committee of six with a bad grace
and continued to intrigue against him. The new Arab
world, too, fell more and more away; indeed, Mu'awiya,
the governor of Syria, a gifted kinsman, already cherished
personal ambitions.
The Arab conquerors, supreme on land, saw the sea
power of the Byzantines still unchallenged and the Greek
fleet, based on Cyprus, a menace to their Syrian and
Egyptian shores. Whether the northern Arab, unlike his
southern kinsman, lacked a sea tradition but now took
to the sea and rapidly developed a nautical arm, or
whether the Arabs used native ships and seamen to trans-
port their armies, they were ready in 649 to launch a
successful attack on the enemy's sea base, and by this
single stroke Cyprus fell into their hands.
Emboldened by this spectacular success, they conceived
plans for a fleet attack against Constantinople itself. In
655 all was ready, but off the Lycian coast the Arabs
encountered a Byzantine fleet of superior size, and
though they were able to scatter five hundred ships, them-
selves sustained such losses that the project had to be
abandoned; and Mu'awiya was obliged to conclude an
unsatisfactory peace, owing to a crisis that had arisen in
Arabia.
The caliphate of Othman was tottering. The very mag-
nitude of the Arab successes without was destined to lead
to its fall, and Othman's maladministration and local un-
popularity hastened the end. Hitherto the wars of con-
quest had brought great revenues from the Prophet's fifth
and the unbelievers' taxes to the caliph at Medina. The
[8 3 ]
THE ARABS
Caliph Omar, while refusing to have a state treasury,
wisely administered these funds in characteristic auto-
cratic Eastern fashion, maintaining civil and religious
officials, providing for pensions for the old and honoured,
for charitable bequests and the like, and so building up a
strong personal position. Medina did well, though its new
affluence had led in Othman's time to luxurious standards
of living in contrast to the simplicity of the lives of the
Prophet and his companions.
But now, under Othman, the wars of conquest had come
to a temporary halt. No new worlds were being conquered
except the remote fringes of Persia and Turkestan, and
Medina revenues shrank to a trickle of their former flood.
Medina suffered from a depression, and its government
was blamed as better governments in more enlightened
times and places have been blamed at such moments. But
Othman, in feeble old age, seconded by a maliciously dis-
loyal secretary, was not the man to face such a situation.
The Arabs without, who had fought and were to fight
again, had interests in such taxes as were being remitted
to the caliph at Medina and there notoriously squandered
on his relations and his unpopular following. Both Oth-
man' s representatives governing Egypt and Iraq were very
unpopular, and the peoples wished to be rid of them. Pro-
tests grew into revolt. A body of five hundred malcontents
from Egypt came on deputation to Medina to intercede
with the caliph, but after despairing of satisfaction at his
hands, besieged his house, broke in and slew the old man
while he was at prayers.
The murder of the discredited Othman by a fellow
Moslem was a blow to the Medina caliphate from which it
never recovered. Ali was now to achieve his heart's desire,
but only when it was too late. A week elapsed before the
[8 4 ]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
excitement caused by the assassination died down. AH is
represented at the hour of prayer going to the mosque
clothed in a poor cotton garment and a coarse turban,
for, like his master, he despised the pomp and vanity of
the world. In one hand he carried his slippers, in the other
his bow, and as he passed reverent onlookers would
salute him as their new caliph. But to be caliph now it was
essential to command the allegiance of the Arabs of Egypt,
Syria, Iraq, Persia, and their support was in grave doubt.
Ali, as we have seen, was a disappointed man. He felt
that his rights, based on a close relationship to the
Prophet, had already been violated on three previous oc-
casions ; his followers held indeed that the three previous
caliphs were usurpers and no true caliphs. The question
whether the Prophet's only surviving child, a daughter,
and wife of Ali, was the rightful residual legatee or not
now became a major issue and split Islam into the two
great divisions of Sunni and Shi' a as we know them today.
Syria, under Mu'awiya, already ripe for secession from
any caliphate, promptly refused to acknowledge Ali as
caliph, accusing him of connivance in the murder of Oth-
man. Egypt and Iraq did accept Ali's representatives as
governors, but if Ali were indeed to be caliph of Islam,
Syria could not be permitted to remain outside the hegem-
ony, and to win Syria the active support of Iraq was
necessary. And so to Iraq Ali fled. Medina was thus left
without a caliph, her treasury was empty, her voice of
authority silent, and in her bereavement Arabia ceased
to be the centre of the caliphate.
Islam was now divided against itself. Iraq and Syria
revived their ancient feud : no longer Christian Byzantium
against Zoroastrian Persia, but Moslem versus Moslem.
The feud at first threatened to develop into interstate
[85]
THE ARABS
warfare but resolved itself into a fight for temporal
supremacy within Islam. For a hundred years Syria tri-
umphed under the Umaiyyads at Damascus, until the
supremacy passed to Iraq under the famous Abbasid
caliphs of Baghdad.
But to return to Ali. Even Iraq did not rise unanimously
to acclaim him, for A'isha, the Prophet's young and
favourite wife, and daughter of the first caliph, Abu Bakr,
who had always been Ali's implacable enemy, had gone
there before him with two other of Ali's personal enemies
to raise the forces of revolt. According to one Arab tra-
dition 'the Mother of the Faithful' rode her camel in and
out among the hostile forces on the day of battle to
hearten them and then took her place where the fighting
waxed fiercest. 'In the heat of action seventy men who
held the bridle of her camel were successively killed or
wounded ; and the cage or litter in which she sat was struck
with javelins and darts like the quills of a porcupine.' 11 *
'The Day of the Camel,' as this battle is known in the
Arab memory, went in favour of Ali and united Iraq in
his favour. He now assembled an army and early in 657
moved up the Euphrates against Syria. Mu'awiya, the
governor, marched down to oppose him, and the two
armies met in the plain to the west of the river opposite
Siffin. One tradition revels in an account of ninety battles
and fabulous casualties in which both Ali and Mu'awiya
performed great fegts of valour and Ali displayed the
quality of mercy, for his forces were enjoined to await
the onset of their opponents, to spare them in flight, to
respect the bodies of the dead and the chastity of female
captives. Another tradition, perhaps more authentic, has
it that battle was joined on one day in July, only to be
broken off the very next day.
[86]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
All's opponents contrived to avoid a pitched battle,
which might well have resulted in a victory for him. On
the morning of the second day the vanguard of Mu'awiya
advanced with copies of the Holy Qur'an tied to their
lances. Awed by this solemn appeal to the Tablets of
God, their opponents were restrained from onslaught
against fellow Moslems. A truce followed, the parties
agreed to abandon warfare and accept adjudication a year
hence, when a representative of each side should meet for
the purpose on the Iraqo-Syrian frontier.
AH had taken a fatal step. Not only had he let slip a
great opportunity to achieve his ends, but by agreeing to
arbitration at all he abandoned the cardinal point of his
case. In the eyes of his following his right was a divine
right, not a claim susceptible of argument. A considerable
body of his supporters left him next day, holding that the
judgment should have been God's, i.e. battle, and these
Khawarij, as they came to be known, were henceforth his
enemies. Ali's forces lost heart, and, conscious of his
losing cause, he led them sorrowfully back to Kufa.
The conference to decide whether Ali were a true
caliph or not duly assembled. Mu'awiya's representative
was one devoted to his cause, no less a man than the
gallant Amr ibn al As, the conqueror of Egypt. He had
returned to Mu'awiya's service in Syria when All's repre-
sentative assumed the governorship in Egypt, a post he
was known to covet himself. All's representative at the
conference was a lesser person and one whose attachment
to Ali's cause was suspect. The result of their delibera-
tions (if any deliberations took place) was interpreted by
Mu'awiya as giving him a free hand. He forthwith pro-
claimed himself caliph at Jerusalem in AJD. 660 and thus
founded the Umaiyyad dynasty of Syria, whose capital
[8 7 ]
THE ARABS
was Damascus. All's cup was full, and before another
year had passed he was assassinated on the doorstep of
the mosque at Kufa in Iraq by three fanatics who had at
one time espoused his cause.
Thus ended the fourth and last of the Medina caliphs.
They had all of them been early converts and companions
of the Prophet ; they were men of deep religious convic-
tions, men who amid power and riches lived simple, strict,
God-fearing lives. That three out of four of them should
have come to violent ends is a commentary on the strong
passions of their people.
With the transfer of the seat of government from
Arabia to Syria a great change came over the rulers.
Yezid, the son of Mu'awiya and second caliph of Da-
mascus, was feeble and dissolute, but that did not in-
validate his succession, for caliphs were in future to rule,
not in virtue of piety and religion as did the early caliphs
of Medina, but as Arab aristocrats in virtue of hereditary
right.
The tragedy of Ali's assassination did not end there.
His two sons, Hassan and Husain, were also fated to a
violent end. Hassan, who had inherited his father's po-
sition in Iraq, but not his ambition, submissively agreed to
retire on a pension to Medina in favour of Mu'awiya
rather than be the instrument of plunging Irak Moslems
into civil war with their Syrian brethren. There in Medina
he lived piously and devoted himself to charitable works,
only to be poisoned eight years later by one of his wives.
Husain, endowed with more of his father's fervour,
dreamt of wresting Iraq from Yezid. Lured by an invita-
tion from a discontented faction in Iraq to come and lead
them in revolt against the Syrian yoke, he trustingly
crossed the desert, but on approaching Kufa he discovered
[88]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
that he had been misled as to the extent of the unrest and
that his approach had been anticipated by the Caliph
Yezid's representative, who had sent out five thousand
men to surround him.
It is possible that Husain could have escaped into the
desert and awaited a more favourable opportunity, and
this course his sister spent the night imploring him to
take, but his passionate belief in his cause drove him on.
One tradition, doubtless apocryphal, tells of how he and
his handful of supporters cut off their own retreat after
the manner of the brave men of old by digging a trench
in their rear and filling it with faggots* Then Husain, a
sword in one hand and a Qur'an in the other, led his
martyrs forward. One of the opposing chiefs, moved
by the heroism, himself deserted to their side, knowing
full well that it led to the immediate joys of paradise.
Steeled to a supernatural strength, they were irresistible
in close combat, but their enemy, greatly outnumbering
them, had only to keep off and send a shower of arrows
into them to achieve success. One by one they fell, till only
Husain remained. Though struck in the mouth by an ar-
row, the grandson of the Prophet could still have been
spared by a merciful enemy ; but this mercy was wanting,
and he fell at last, lacerated with the wounds of thirty-
three strokes of sword and lance. His body was trampled
on, his head was cut off and brought to the governor of
Kufa, who, when he saw it, struck with his cane across
the bleeding mouth. 'Alas 1 J burst out an aged stander-by
c on those lips I have seen the lips of the Prophet of God 1*
The surviving sisters and children of Ali the Martyr
were brought in chains before the Caliph Yezid at Da-
mascus, who might have rid himself of them had he cared
but instead exercised his clemency and allowed them to
THE ARABS
depart. Their posterity in later centuries grew and were
especially revered. I have many times witnessed the south
Arabian native holding the back of the hand of one of
them to his own nostrils, to take a hearty sniff, believing
that he imbibed virtue by this act. In Persia and Iraq their
descendants till recent times were not obliged to work,
for all would give alms to them.
But it was the imams, i.e., Ali, Hassan, Husain and
Husain's nine lineal descendants, who enjoyed the special
veneration of the Shi 5 a branch of Islam as the only right-
ful caliphs following the Prophet, and whose tombs,
glorious specimens of Persian art, are found today over-
looking the Euphrates in Iraq and in Khorasan places of
Shi'a pilgrimage. The most notable and venerated are the
mosque of Ali at Najaf and the mosque of Husain at Ker-
bela. The twelfth and last imam of this hereditary apostolic
succession of the Shi'as did not die, it is held, but disap-
peared into a cave at Samarra. He is alive still, after
nearly a thousand years, though hidden from men's eyes,
and will manifest himself some day to denounce and over-
throw an anti-Christ who will appear and disturb the
earth before the Judgment Day. The mahdi, as this
twelfth imam is called, has on at least one occasion been
impersonated in the Sudan with disconcerting effects to
public peace and the tranquillity of British authorities.
It is the martyrdom of Ali and his sons, almost more
than the doctrine of their exclusive hereditary right to
succeed the Prophet, that characterizes the Shi' a faith
of later times, and around these saints and martyrs the
famous Passion play of the East is woven, to sadden the
streets of the Shi'a towns of Persia and Iraq on the
tenth day of Muharram. The growth of this movement
is bound up with the conquest of the old Persian empire,
[90]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST EASTWARDS
for the Arabs in overcoming communities with a more
advanced culture than their own themselves became Per-
sianized, and their religion also came to undergo this
Persianized development. Schism developed early arounc
the principle of Ali's divine right to succeed, based on the
belief of exclusive spiritual heir ship to the Prophet, a doc-
trine the Persians made peculiarly their own. This doctrine
of an hereditary apostolic succession by which divine virtue
could pass only in the Prophet's seed came near to a doc-
trine of incarnation, and whatever the teachings of the
Prophet, the idea could not have been new or distasteful
to converts from Christianity, who were then or
later to embrace the Shi'a form of Islam. As a challenge
to the legality of the Umaiyyad caliphs, Shi' ism was in the
course of a century to become a political weapon for end-
ing Arab dominance in the Islamic state.
Meanwhile under the Damascus caliphate the Arab
armies carried on their campaign in eastern Persia with the
same indomitable spirit that had carried them there.
Within twenty years of the fall of Nihavand they had
overcome the two easternmost provinces of Khorasan and
Seistan and were raiding into Afghanistan, undaunted by
native outbreaks in the unpacified areas behind them.
Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the strong governor of Iraq, seems to
have been the moving spirit of these distant activities, and
when recruits for them fell off, presumably as a result of
improved conditions of life in growing Arab communities,
for the old camps of Basrah and Kufa were fast becoming
rich cities, he resorted to compulsory levies under penalty
of death. No less than twenty thousand men are supposed
to have been drafted to the Persian wars from Iraq. Even
then the shortage of men in the field is known to have
driven Arab generals to the bold course of enlisting Per-
[91]
THE ARABS
sian irregulars before Persia had been properly subju-
gated, and the victorious army of five thousand that
crossed the Oxus after the fall of Balkh in 669 is held to
have been one fifth Persian.
Within a generation the invincible Arabs had overrun
the entire province of Trans-Oxiana and annexed the
mighty cities of Samarkand and Bokhara. At this point,
a borderland between two races of mankind the Cau-
cusoids and the Mongoloids it is of interest to note Arab
military expansion into Asia reached its uttermost limit. 4
*The expansion of Islam into further Asia, as also into inner Africa and
eastern Europe, does not properly belong to these Arab wars. It came about
later, either as the result of waves of conquest carried on by non-Arab
peoples who had embraced Islam or from the proselytizing zeal of Moslems,
Arabs and others. The starting point was this last-to-be-acquired Trans-
Oxus fringe of Islam. The Emperor Mahmud of Ghazna, who had made
himself independent of the Persian Samanids, invaded India, and the
province of the Punjab was annexed by his son early in the eleventh cen-
tury. Another wave of Iranian Moslems overran Gujerat and Kashmir, to
be followed a century later by an Afghan annexation of Sind and Mooltan,
and thus Islam was spread across northern India. Thence towards the
close of the thirteenth century it was carried under a Turkish house through
the Deccan into southern India. The Turks from the steppes of Central
Asia carried Islam into southeastern Europe in the fourteenth century. Else-
where the extension of Islam came about by peaceable means. From India
it naturally spread by trade intercourse through the East Indies, Java
becoming its particular stronghold from the missionary efforts of south
Arabians who had settled there. From Egypt Islam was carried up the
Nile into the Sudan, and at a much later time the establishment of Arab
sultanates in East Africa, notably Zanzibar, led to its penetration into
equatorial Africa.
[92]
CHAPTER IV
Arab World Conquest Westwards
STWARDS the wave of Arab expansion along the
north coast of Africa rolled more uncertainly. It was a
slowed-down wave that broke over the walls of Carthage,
a midway point, after caliphs had been reigning in Damas-
cus for upwards of a quarter of a century and Arab do*
minion eastwards had well-nigh reached its utmost Asiatic
limit beyond the Oxus.
On this western front the Arabs, after their early con-
quest of Egypt, had for a generation been content with
plundering forays into Cyrenaica, Tripoli and latterly into
Tunis then called Ifrikiya and to be identified with our
word 'Africa ' and with a light and precarious occupa-
tion of the lowlands. Authorities are prone to ascribe this
delay in a determined penetration to the fierce opposition
of the native inhabitants of north Africa on the grounds
that the Berbers were a race not so naturally predisposed
to the Arabs as the kindred Aramaeans of Syria had been,
and were therefore prepared to defend more vigorously
their nationality, customs and language against fresh alien
incursions.
-[93]
THE ARABS
Rather it would seem that the Arab hunger for fresh
territory had been sated by the conquest of the Near and
Middle East. The superior material rewards of the east-
ern campaigns as compared with those of the north Afri-
can deserts acted as a stronger magnet, while the
formidable obstacles that lay in the way of the eastern at-
tainments fully occupied the Arabs at this time. It would be
strange indeed if the unorganized Berbers could have
stemmed a flood which was submerging the imperial Per-
sians, a people not less proud of their own language and
customs and possessing a highly developed political and
military organization.
The difference in race and outlook between Berber and
Arab is wont to be overstressed. Even allowing for the
Arab strain in north African populations that followed
the infiltrations of the seventh and eleventh centuries, the
indigenous non-Arabic speaking Berbers of the High Atlas
today strike the writer as being racially akin to Arabs he
has met in Aleppo and the faraway mountains of Oman ;
in a cultural sense, too, the Berbers were made up of tribes
of rude pastoralists, and their minds could scarcely have
been of essentially different temper from those of the
early Arab invaders.
The lowlands of Cyrenaica and Tripoli are said to have
been early and easily Islamized, but traditions speak of
the Berbers of Tunisia as Jews and Christians, though it
is more likely that they were chiefly pagans practising ani-
mistic cults like the bulk of their brethren to the west
the Berbers of central Maghrib (Algeria) and western
Maghrib (Morocco). At the time of the Arab invasion
the Byzantines were masters of the coasts, a prefect of
the emperor ruling from Tripoli to Tangier, but it is
thought that outside the garrisoned towns the Berbers had
[94]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST WESTWARDS
never at any time been properly subjugated whoever the
invader Byzantine, Vandal, Roman or Phoenician.
In the year 670 the earlier spasmodic warfare of the
Arabs gave place to something far more serious that boded
ill alike for Berber independence and Byzantine suze-
rainty. This was the establishment of a regular military
camp at Qairawan to the south of Tunis as a base of oper-
ations, after the model of Basrah and Kufa a camp that
was destined to grow in a few years to be the capital city
of the Arab west. Its conception is associated with the
Arab hero Uqba, a haughty and brave leader, who, greatly
to the taste of the Arabs, was no soft-spoken diplomat
but a master of the sword, and whose exploits at the head
of a body of horsemen riding madly through the oases of
the northern Sahara fringe, striking terror into the foe,
make him a legend in north African deserts to this day.
Uqba seems to have lost the confidence of his caliph, for
he was superseded for a time by one Dinar, not so flashy
a soldier perhaps, but a more farseeing one, for Dinar's
policy of conciliating the Berbers and regarding the By-
zantines as the main enemy was one that was ultimately
adopted and proved successful. Meanwhile Uqba was re-
instated, and according to tradition he kept Dinar as his
prisoner in chains and thus took him on his raids against
the Berbers. Greatly daring, he is held to have cut his way
through to the Atlantic shores at Tangier in 682, but on
his return was ambushed in the Atlas and slain, Dinar
sharing his fate.
A temporary reconquest of Qairawan from the Arabs
under a priestess (kahina), according to tradition a Jew-
ess of the priestly tribe of Levi (Kahina=Cohen), was
the outstanding feature of a period of resistance which
lasted for twenty years, while Moslem fortunes waxed and
[95]
THE ARABS
waned so that some Berbers are said to have apostatized
a dozen times. It was only when the Arabs persuaded the
Berbers that their interests lay with Islam, when the Ber-
bers saw the opportunity of joining hands with the Arabs
to expel the Hellenized and Latin populations of north
Africa to Spain and Sicily and of following them across
the sea to plunder the treasuries of southern Europe, that
the Arab path westwards was made smooth; but if the
Berbers ever regarded the Arabs as liberators from a for-
eign yoke they were soon to find that they had only
changed masters.
Carthage fell in 697698, and with it fell the power of
the Byzantines and that of their local Berber allies of
Tunis and Algeria. The Arabs had obtained the command
of the sea in the Mediterranean at about this time, and
their fleet played an important part in the siege of Car-
thage, and thereafter its co-operation was to afford effec-
tive assistance in the movement westwards to the shores
of the Atlantic and northwards across the straits into
southern Europe.
With the investment of Tangier in 710, Spain loomed
up temptingly beyond the straits, but there was neither
need nor desire on the part of the Arabs for further ex-
pansion. It was the allied Berbers who seized the chance
of improving their material condition by promptly set-
ting off on piratical raids to the Balearic Islands and to
southern Spain.
Spain at this time was ruled by a Visigothic aristocracy,
but it was not a united country. As in Persia before its
fall, the state had been undermined by internal dissensions
and traitorous factions and was ready to collapse before
a conqueror possessing the military prowess of the Mos-
lems. Visigothic and Spanish-Roman antagonisms had only
[96]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST WESTWARDS
ately been composed ; strife between Visigoth nobles them-
,elves still continued; the Jews were utterly estranged by
>ersecution; and the enslaved classes did not care who
uled them. For a hundred years a struggle had been in
)rogress between king and nobility ; the king, supported by
he clergy, was anxious to establish an hereditary dynasty
vith despotic powers ; the nobles, ambitious for their own
iggrandisement, preferred to elect one of themselves to
he throne whenever it became vacant, thus, at time of
uccession, causing political unrest by supporting some one
andidate, some another.
The only continuity during that period had been a con-
inuity of Jewish persecution by the king's council, in
Fhich church influence was dominant. At the outset the
"ews increased and prospered under protection of the old
Ionian law. This, in theory, did impose disabilities; mar-
iages with Christians, for instance, were forbidden, and
ews might not occupy public office or own Christian slaves,
>ut in practice the law was administered laxly, and all
hese things had been allowed. Early in the seventh cen-
ury, however, under a bigoted Visigoth sovereign, the law
ame to be more rigorously enforced, and Jews were of-
ered the alternative of being baptized into the Catholic
aith or suffering banishment and the confiscation of their
troperty/ Persecution ebbed and flowed under successive
aonarchs. It was at its height but a few years later when
ews were required to forswear their religion on penalty
>f death and henceforth profess and practise Christianity;
n oath was devised for future kings, whereby they must
ndertake not to permit Jews to violate the Christian
aith or allow them 'to open up the path of prevarication
o those who are hovering on the brink of unbelief.' In the
diddle of the century the king had to bind himself to
[97]
THE ARABS
maintain the Catholic religion, prosecute all Jews and
heretics, and those who refused to be converted were to be
stoned to death or burnt alive. Thirty years later Jews
were required to receive baptism under penalty of banish-
ment, scourging and loss of hair.
It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that in A.D.
694 the Jews were guilty of conspiring with those who
dwelt in lands beyond the sea, i.e. north Africa, with a
view to overthrowing the state a conspiracy that brought
upon its perpetrators penal measures by which the for-
tunate suffered the loss of their property, others were re-
duced to slavery. Within fifteen years the Moslems in-
vaded Spain and brought the Jews deliverance.
A year before the landing the death of the Visigothic
king and the ensuing struggle for the succession had the
usual disturbing effects throughout the land. Roderick
and Achila, two nobles, were the rival claimants to the
throne; Roderick was chosen, whereupon Achila and his
immediate" supporters fled to Africa for refuge, as Visi-
goth nobles had done in 642 under similar circumstances
and probably on many earlier occasions. But meanwhile the
rule of north Africa had passed into Moslem hands, the
ruler and representative of the caliph of Damascus was
an Arab, Musa ibn Nusair, and Musa readily agreed to
espouse Achila's cause.
The first invasion of Spain was undertaken ostensibly
to assist Achila, in reality probably with a view rather to
plunder than to conquest, for the caliphs are supposed to
have regarded these later military expeditions in the dis-
tant outposts of empire with misgiving. Musa probably
thought of it as just another summer raid, a means of keep-
ing the Berbers happily occupied ; three years before they
had raided Majorca, and only the year before had passed
[98]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST WESTWARDS
on to the mainland, skirmished through Andalusia and re-
turned to Algeciras loaded with spoils. But if he did, he
underestimated his Berber general, the freed slave Tariq,
who had been appointed governor of Tangier, for Tariq
was now to conquer Spain.
With a force of seven thousand men, mostly Berbers,
Tariq crossed the straits in the year A.D. 711 and landed
near Gibraltar, a name that immortalizes his own, for it is
the anglicized form of the arabic Jabal Tariq, i.e. the
mount of Tariq. At first the force indulged in piracy and
highway robbery along the coast, spreading terror far and
wide. The unpopular King Roderick gathered a force to
oppose the invaders, and at Salado a great battle took
place. The day went in Tariq's favour, and Roderick, the
victim of the treachery of his political enemies, was
slain. Emboldened by this success and by the knowledge
that the native populations hated their Gothic rulers,
Tariq conceived the bold plan of marching on the capital,
at that time Toledo. The Jews welcomed and assisted the
invaders, a natural enough revenge for their long perse-
cution, and their reward came later when Spanish trade
passed largely into their hands. Cordova fell by treachery,
the aristocracy and priesthood did not await the Moslems
but fled, and Tariq had only one serious battle to fight
during his triumphal march on Toledo, which city, again
by treacherous act, threw open its gates to him.
Tariq's boldness had, by one lightning stroke, destroyed
the Gothic rule in Spain, and Musa, lord of north Africa,
though staggered by the event, was quick to seize the op-
portunity of adding Spain to the caliphate despite the
caliph and incalculable riches to his own purse. He
gathered an army of eighteen thousand men and next year
himself landed in Spain at their head. Tariq's way had
[99]
THE ARABS
been the bold and dangerous one of marching through the
very heart of the country to the capital, leaving great for-
tified cities in his rear, a plan that invited disaster, for in
normal conditions his retreat might well have been cut off.
Musa followed the more orthodox course of laying siege
to all fortified places on his way. Seville, a former capital
and the intellectual centre of Spain, was strongly garri-
soned and stood his siege for many months, and other
cities in which the Goths were powerful stubbornly re-
sisted, but one by one these fell, and after two years of
arduous campaigning Musa, too, reached his objective,
Toledo. One of his first acts there was to disgrace Tariq,
whose brilliant success had aroused his jealousy, but within
a few weeks he himself was to suffer similarly at the hands
of an ungrateful caliph who recalled him to Damascus.
The pacification of Spain fell to his successors, but after
four years Moslem hold was already sufficiently consoli-
dated over the whole country (except for the mountainous
strip of northern coast, Asturias, which continued to be
a Latin principality) to permit of raids over the Pyrenees
into Gaul. In the north the France of the future was at this
time in the making, but the south was divided up into petty
principalities perpetually at war one with another. It was
this disunity among the Franks that gave the invaders'
lust for plunder the necessary provocation and oppor-
tunity. Under Samh, the fifth successor of Musa, these
sporadic raids gave place to a more ambitious design.
Narbonne was captured in A.D. 720, a place that served as
a base for more extended operations and in which the
Arabs maintained a footing for nearly forty years. But
on Toulouse a Moslem attack with battering rams was
easily repelled, the invaders being weakened by quarrels
between Arabs and Berbers.
[100]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST WESTWARDS
Emboldened, however, by the internecine warfare in
which the small Frankish states continued to indulge, a
large Saracen force was assembled by Abdul Rahman, one
of Musa's successors, who now himself crossed the Pyre-
nees ; Avignon fell in 730, the march was continued down
the Garonne, and Bordeaux was captured thence the in-
vaders turned northeastwards, with the rich city of Tours
as their objective. But between Tours and Poitiers they
were intercepted by an army of Franks under Charles
Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne, who had
marched south to resist them. The Saracens were no match
for the Franks on this occasion, and after an unequal
contest they fled, abandoning all their war stores.
This battle of Tours, or Poitiers as it is sometimes
called, was the turning point of Arab fortunes, marking the
limit of Arab penetration into France. 1 If the conquest of
Gaul was ever contemplated, which is doubtful, the ambi-
tion was born of a tradition of infallible success rather
than of a sober appreciation of a new and difficult situa-
tion. The Frankish soldiers were of comparatively im-
perturbable temper, and they withstood the light cavalry
of the volatile Saracens in a way to which the latter had
not been accustomed. It is sometimes heard said that had
the Arabs defeated Charles Martel they would have swept
through Europe, and Islam would have come to take the
place of Christianity. But the importance attached to the
battle of A.D. 732 is probably exaggerated, for the Arabs
had by this time shot their bolt after a century of war-
fare ; they represented but a tiny fraction of the Moslems
in Spain, and thus the wars of expansion really came to an
end from the inherent exhaustion of the caliphate forces.
defeat of the Arabs before Constantinople in 717 by the Emperor
Lea III was the first decisive setback to Arab fortunes in the West
[101]
After Tours they fell back on Narbonne, and for the
following seven years occasional raids were made, the
most impressive being that of 734 when the Rhone was
crossed, Aries sacked and Avignon recaptured. For twenty
years more they were content, however, passively to hold
Narbonne, till the Franks rose in revolt and massacred
their garrison. But if France was no longer to be mo-
lested, Spain, except for a strip of coast along the Bay of
Biscay, had become a possession of the caliph of Damas-
cus, and in the course of time was largely to abandon its
Catholic faith and follow the teachings of the Arab
prophet and to turn many of its churches into mosques.
At the outset Spain, with Morroco, formed the province
of Maghrib, whose capital was at Qairawan. There the
caliph's representative was the supreme governor, and
Spain was left to a subprefect to rule, first from Seville
and later from Cordova. The strong individuality of the
Berbers was soon to make trouble for the Arabs. At home,
in north Africa, these Berbers were a subject people of the
Arabs, a condition that made them feel resentful ; whereas
in Spain, not only were they not a subject people, they were
themselves the conquerors, or at least they had taken a
major part in the conquest. All was well so long as Berbers
and Arabs were actually engaged in pursuit of some com-
mon advantage, but once the objective was secured and
peace came about, the Berbers were in no mood to be
treated as less than equals. The arrogance of some of the
officials and soldiers sent from imperial Damascus was
more than they would stand, and out of their dissatisfac-
tion grew large-scale revolts.
A rising of Berbers in Morocco in 741 was signalized
by a repudiation of allegiance to Damascus, and the Arab
troops sent to crush it from Qairawan were themselves
[102]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST WESTWARDS
vanquished. Peace was restored, but it was only a tem-
porary peace, and the events, in any case, were bound to
have serious repercussions in Spain. Another ominous
feature was the declining authority of the Umaiyyad
caliphs of Damascus themselves. The loss of their pre-
carious footing in north Africa and Spain was only a ques-
tion of time, for if the Moors 2 were intolerant of caliphate
despotism the local Arab governors, individualists that
they were, were not less ready to seize a means of realizing
their own personal ambitions by becoming independent
rulers. Tunis, in A.D. 745, was the first to throw off its al-
legiance to Damascus; parts of Morocco followed; then
Spain herself, within thirty-five years of Tariq's conquest,
repudiated the caliphate and asserted her independence.
Ten years later a young Arab prince who had fled from
Syria to north Africa after the fall of his dynasty, the
famous Abdul Rahman al Mu'awiya, landed in Spain and
was soon acclaimed its ruler.
In the more backward territories of north Africa con-
ditions grew anarchic, and the caliph was powerless to
prevent dissolution of his dependencies into barbarous
robber states. Thus by the time the Umaiyyad dynasty was
overthrown and the centre of government shifted from
Damascus to Baghdad, only Qairawan remained loyal, and
this final African allegiance had become little more than
nominal in A.D. 800 under the ruling Aghlabids. Though
the territory of these Aghlabids of Qairawan was small,
they are historically notable because their fleet in 82743
conquered Sicily and thus planted Islam at the very
threshold of the Papal See.
word Moor, clearly to be identified with the word Morocco, is in
fact a European term that acquired the loose usage for Spanish Moslems
generally, whether of Arab or Berber ancestry; doubtless by this time they
were intermixed.
[103]
THE ARABS
From the moment the Arabs had established supremacy
over the Byzantines at sea the fate of the islands of the
Mediterranean was sealed, and one by one they passed
into Moslem hands. In the eastern Mediterranean the first
generation of Arab newcomers to Syria and Egypt raided
the islands of Rhodes, Crete and Cyprus (holding the
last-named intermittently for three and a half centuries
till Richard Coeur de Lion came and conquered it during
the crusades) . In the western Mediterranean the island of
Pallentaria, a steppingstone between Africa and Sicily, was
early occupied, and Corsica and Sardinia were plundered.
It was next the turn of Sicily- Sicily had been raided from
Egypt as early as the middle of the seventh century, but
the island remained loyal to the Byzantines till 826. The
Berbers with a sprinkling of Arab chiefs then obtained a
footing in Palermo, spent fifty years gradually reducing
the western part of the island and by 962 had become its
masters. They had invaded Malta at about the same time
as Sicily, ruled it till 1091 and were resident for another
three hundred and fifty years, when they departed, leaving
behind them their dialect of Arabic, which is the language
of the Maltese to this day.
From these islands and from north Africa Moslem
pirates ravaged southern Europe. In the earliest days Ber-
bers from Sicily joined with others from Tunis to raid the
Italian coasts, and the savage Barbary pirates from here
and elsewhere kept up the old activities. Owing allegiance
to none, they were lured by the riches of seaports and
monasteries, they carried off captive women and church
treasures, which, according to one Arab authority, were
sold to idolatrous India for gold. The terror which their
swift visitations caused in Italy led to the building of
watchtowers along the coast between Naples and Palermo
[104]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST WESTWARDS
which stand to this day. Later on the Saracens enlisted as
mercenaries of one Italian state against another. On one
such expedition they reached the Adriatic and seized the
shipping in the Venetian roads. On another the important
town of Bar! fell into their hands, and, recognizing its
strategic importance, they decided to keep it themselves
and fortify it as a base for future operations.
The sultans of Ban threw off their allegiance to Sicily
(where Moslem occupation had a very different signifi-
cance, for civilization had begun to flourish there) and
lived by plundering the south, their onslaughts, according
to Western historians, being of the most savage kind. But
it was the fabulous treasures of Rome itself that had long
attracted the Barbary pirates of north Africa, and one
summer morning in A.D. 840 the holy city awoke to find
eleven hundred Saracens before its walls. They swarmed
in to plunder the Church of St Peter and the Cathedral of
St Paul and to violate the graves of pontiffs, but just as
they re-embarked a violent storm swallowed up their
seventy-three spoil-laden ships and every man on board;
so Christian authorities record, for the pirates themselves
were unlettered men who have left no records of these
times.
The Saracens' next step was to obtain a footing on
the Calabrian coast, where they became such a menace
that the pope of the time, John VIII, was compelled, in
878, to pay tribute as the price of peace. Their depreda-
tions lasted for another generation until Pope John X
was able to drive the last Moslem from Italian soil. Mos-
lems remained in occupation of Sicily for 200 years longer
until the Normans came in 1091, while their occupation of
Spain continued for many centuries, though in the later
period their dominance gradually declined. The small
[105]
THE ARABS
Latin kingdoms in the north of the peninsula grew in
power and little by little encroached southwards till the
final expulsion of Moors in 1492, when they were driven
back to Africa. The Spanish mosques were transformed
into churches, though for two centuries more secret com-
munities practised the faith of the Arab prophet till they,
too, the Moriscos, were banished from the land, and
Islam faded into a memory. But it was the earlier with-
drawal from Italy towards the end of the ninth century
that marked the beginning of Saracenic decline.
Arab military power was never again to attain the
eminence it enjoyed in those first two centuries after the
Prophet, the seventh and eighth centuries of our era, when
the Arabs imposed their dominion from the Himalayas
across Asia and Africa to the Pyrenees. The later activi-
ties of the Moslemized Berbers in the Mediterranean may
seem heinous, judged by modern standards of warfare, but
both robbery and slavery were probably regarded as legiti-
mate by at least some of the maritime southern Europeans
of the time, and against the sum of the injuries inflicted
by the conquests must be set the splendour of the Arab era
that followed, when a great civilization dawned upon the
Islamic world, and Iraq and Spain, the seats of the eastern
and western caliphates with connecting links of Egypt and
Sicily, became great centres of learning.
This splendour had modest beginnings, as we have seen.
A tiny revolution in seventh-century Arabia sent a stream
of Arabs overrunning the civilized world. The ancient
peoples were infused with a quickening influence, the old
lifeblood invigorated by a young and strongly pulsating
heart, and the Islamic civilization came into being. There-
after for four centuries or more, while Europe lay slum-
bering in the Middle Ages immediately before her own
[106]
ARAB WORLD CONQUEST WESTWARDS
Renaissance, it was the Islamized countries under Arab
rulers at the outset that became pre-eminent in the earth
for their learning, their culture and their material pros-
perity. 3
s AIthough Saracen is sometimes applied to all these Arab wars, it is a
slovenly European term for the Moslems of the early period generally
Arabs, Berbers or whoever else.
[107]
Part Two
CIVILIZATION
CHAPTER V
The Medieval State and Its Society
T
JLHJ
.HE original Arab warriors who poured out of Arabia
immediately after the Prophet's death were for the most
part unlettered and semibarbarous men. They were on a
lower cultural level than the peoples they overcame, the
peoples of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia in particular,
each of them heirs of ancient civilizations however much
then in decay. If they could at first rest on their laurels as
conquering invaders their descendants must adapt them-
selves to their new world in order to justify ascendancy
among communities more cultured than themselves. That
the newcomers had no learning was perhaps an advantage,
for it entailed a minimum of disturbance for the lands they
occupied local administrations, for instance, went on
much as they did before. The Arabs were not imposing a
new civilization. They had none to impose. What time had
in store for them to do was to invigorate the scattered
civilizations then in decline and give them a new life and
character of their own.
That revolution is most easily understood if we re-
cm]
THE ARABS
member what it was they brought out of Arabia with them
to a tired and distracted world, the factors that made for
extension of their dominion and led to the recognition of
their eminence among nations. The Arabs, in the first place,
were the source of two mighty influences : a great religion
and a great language ; the one a creed, simple, rational and
in essence democratic, that proved capable of inspiring
supernational loyalties and growing to world dimensions ;
the other a tongue so rich and flexible that it was fitted to
become the scientific and classical as well as the religious
idiom of an empire, in much the same way as Latin served
for medieval Europe. But it took time for these influences
to pervade the earlier cultures and then prevail within
them. The first wave of rude warriors spent itself to
different ends. Under Khalid and Amr these original con-
querors were largely Beduin, of the generation that saw
the new religion's birth. The majority could only just have
given adherence to the new movement, a great many from
expediency, though others, of course, from honest con-
viction, but, as the first raids showed, they were animated
chiefly by the hope of improving their material condition,
rather than aflame with zeal to share with others a com-
mon salvation. Illuminating is the message of the Caliph
Omar to a distant expedition. 'Pacification and tribute,' he
remonstrated, 'are to be preferred to loot that soon passes
away.'
The all-conquering Arabs were in the first place and for
the most part hungry, brave and ruthless warriors. Their
psychology was the psychology of Arabia Deserta : they
inherited a belief in force; they had been reared in an en-
vironment where force was necessary and therefore ac-
quired social justification; they were by conviction as by
nature manly, militant and aggressive, and the immediate
[112]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
and dazzling rewards of their first easy conquests not only
justified this secular creed, but fixed them in its ways. It
was fitting, perhaps, that the first coin the Arabs adapted
from the Byzantines, about a half century later ( A.H. 70) ,
should bear the design it did, and in place of a Byzantine
emperor, staff in hand, we have a caliph holding a sword.
In Arabia they had been ranged tribe against tribe;
they would naturally at first think of themselves as fight-
ing under a supertribal banner, the enemy being the tribes
outside their own allegiance and meet therefore to be
spoiled. The Arab tribe, before its recent allegiance to the
new larger unit, had grown out of a clan whose basis was
blood kinship. Injury done to a member of a tribe from
outside was regarded as injury done to the tribe as a whole,
and any member of the tribe could avenge it ; so, too, the
original offender need not be the target; any other mem-
ber of his tribe would do equally well for the purpose of
revenge. Such usage had the sanction of immemorial prac-
tice and endures in tribal Arabia to this day in spite of the
Prophet's reforms.
The immediate revolution that Muhammad wrought
later to grow into a great practical brotherhood was the
creation, in effect, of a supertribe whose basis was not
blood kinship but a religious faith, whose sanctions were
revealed by God and whose loyalties must outweigh those
of either kin or tribe. Those who embraced the new alle-
giance became members of this supertribe, a chosen people
sworn not to injure but to assist and succour one another.
Aggression had been condemned by the Prophet, and
Western authorities do not believe that he planned or even
foresaw the century of wars of conquest which immedi-
ately followed his death. But if the early raiding parties
were tribally minded and worldly minded the caliphs of
THE ARABS
Medina were pious and good men who sent on their heels
others who had come under the influence of the Prophet's
religious teachings, Arabs of high character and moral rec-
titude, most of them men of the settlements doubtless, so
that the seed of the religious movement was sown in the
outside Arab world and in the course of time came to a
splendid fruition.
4 In the whole history of the world, till then,* says Mar-
maduke Pickthall, a convert to Islam, 'the conquered had
been absolutely at the mercy of the conqueror, no matter
how complete his submission might be, no matter though
he might be of the same religion as the conqueror. That is
still the theory of war outside Islam. But it is not the Is-
lamic theory. According to the Moslem Laws of War,
those of the conquered peoples who embraced Islam be-
came the equals of the conquerors in all respects. And those
who chose to keep their own religion had to pay a tribute
for the cost of their defence, but after that enjoyed full
liberty of conscience and were secured and protected in
their occupations.' 10 *
And so among these diverse peoples across western Asia
and north Africa burst this new conqueror. In many of
these lands a wide gulf had divided the alien nobility from
the native populations. The social structure had been one
in which luxury and culture flourished at the top ; below,
the common herd were in a condition not much above serf-
dom. The Arab invaders, unlettered men, no lovers of
luxury, innately democratic, were strangers to such in-
equalities. The religion brought by them inveighed against
colour or race prejudice, taught human equality and human
brotherhood. Servility was foreign to the nature of the
man of the deserts. His coming introduced to the subject
peoples a sense of release from servitude. If the Arabs had
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
much to learn, culturally, from those they conquered, they
had an example of human worth to set forth, and it was
this that led to the acceptance, as military prowess led to
the extension, of their dominion. Hence these scattered
peoples came one by one to be swallowed up in a super-
national state.
The small Moslem community grew from a supertribe
of Moslems within Arabia to a superstate of mixed races
and religions without.
The leader of the supertribe was at first Muhammad,
its creator. But in theory God alone ruled the community
through his divinely revealed ordinances delivered through
the Prophet's lips, and when the Prophet died Allah's
guidance was stored up in the Prophet's ordinances and
traditions. The Prophet's successor, the caliph, according
to original intention, was not to be a ruler over his people,
not a sovereign, not even a pontiff, for all believers were
equal. He was merely a successor of the Prophet, to in-
terpret the holy law and administer justice between Mos-
lems, merely a commander of the faithful. It was a theo-
cratic state in which the nominal head, the caliph, must
guide, not by personal caprice (the tribal shaikh could not,
either, of course), not even by personal right, but in ac-
cordance with the laws of God already revealed, and the
faithful must obey the caliph only so long as he kept within
the bounds set by the Qur'anic ordinances.
In this community, wherein rights of intertribal re-
venge were surrendered, an offence against an individual
was to be expiated by the offender himself, though the com-
munity, as by religious duty, were interested that justice
should be done.
Now the Qur'an contained legal rulings which had
been revealed to meet a great variety of situations and
THE ARABS
needs. Some of the sanctions may well have been not very
different from the usages of the tribe of Quraish, the
Prophet's own settled tribe of Mecca, in which case they
must have been admirably suited to the early Arab urban
communities that sprang up around the great military
camps of Basrah, Kufa, Fustat, etc., offshoots of a similar
social culture. The thief, for instance, must suffer his of-
fending hand to be cut off. The underlying principle of
this law was the principle of retaliation or reciprocity,
the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
The talio was, of course, an old Semitic conception of the
Jewish code, a conception quite Arabian in spirit. Under
Islam there was no permission to go beyond the measure
of the criminal's own deed : it must be equitable retaliation,
and religion forbade making an example of punishment.
Moreover it was a merit in him who showed kindliness
and forgave the offender.
Shari'a, or the Islamic law, was the Code of Sanctions
collated from the Qur'an. As part of the divine revela-
tions, law and religion were thus complementary, and so
to disobey Shari'a was to infringe religious ordinance. It
specified conditions, for instance, about marriage and
divorce, laid down how family inheritances must be di-
vided, limited the rights of private property and those of
individuals making contracts, forbade usury, defined the
rights of husbands and wives, of masters and slaves and of
parents and daughters. Such laws, whether or not revealed
for specific cases, acquired the validity of general divine
ordinance. They were applied by orthodox Moslem com-
munities then as now.
The first collation of the Qur'an was not made before
the Caliph Abu Bakr's day, and for a long time after-
wards the lack of literacy and the slowness of book-
[116]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
copying restricted the dissemination of the written word,
though learning the verses of the Qur'an by heart was a
passion with the pious. Now during those first two or three
decades while the Arabs were overrunning Egypt, Syria,
Iraq and Persia, brushing against cultures that were dif-
ferent from and more complex than their own, the leaders
came to be confronted with problems, political and social,
for which they could remember no specific scriptural guid-
ances, and they were thrown back on their private judg-
ment.
Time passed, and the Arab conquerors, growing ac-
customed to their position of dominance in the community,
not unnaturally came to regard life through different eyes.
In the deserts their social structure had been simple and
homogeneous. Such aristocracy as Arabia had known
comprised the shaikhly families in the tribes and the rich
merchant class of the settlements. Ancestry in the one case,
wealth and patronage in the other, exalted certain indi-
viduals, but in spirit the Arab paid small attention to social
refinements; his was a natural and easy assumption of
equality; he grovelled to none and rated personal free-
dom over all things; it was sufficiently aristocratic for
him to be a worthy scion of an ancient tribe, and the only
individuals he instinctively felt reverence for were bards
and warriors of renown.
His world had its depressed class of course; indeed,
there were two clearly marked (and rightly enough)
classes in his scheme of life : freemen and slaves. Muham-
mad had discouraged class distinctions among his follow-
ers. Islam, within Arabia, frowned on human claims to
superiority. It counted the lowly equal with the great,
recognized goodness as the only criterion of superiority. It
was essentially democratic in temper and in this reflected
THE ARABS
the spirit of the desert. Had not the first caliph, indeed,
gone to the lengths of dividing the spoils of the raid
equally between young and old, slave and free, male and
female, for were not all believers brothers ? Had not the
second clothed himself in coarse linen and sandals of
fibre ; had he not on that historic visit to Jerusalem to re-
ceive its surrender entered the city walking, while at his
side his servant rode the horse that they had shared be-
tween them turn by turn, on the journey thither?
Thirty years had passed since the Prophet's death. They
were thirty years of continuous fighting. The purely Arab
and Moslem theocracy of Arabia had grown to become
a political state of many religions and peoples. Medina
had been superseded by Damascus* The old ideological con-
ception, of the caliph as the interpreter of holy law in a
theocratic state, holding his office in virtue of great piety,
had now given place to kingship, the rule of the sword, a
hereditary dynasty. Damascus, now the capital of an em-
pire predominantly non-Moslem, brought personal rule
and political expediency. Whatever misgivings the truly
orthodox felt, they were powerless to prevent what had
come about by the inexorable compulsion of growth. When
Islam had been a small, homogeneous, self-contained
Arabian community the Prophet himself, or an early
caliph, had been able to control it as its judge and guide,
but the ever-widening horizons of a vast empire and the
increasing complexities of its affairs led inevitably to a
devolution of powers to military leaders and governors of
provinces, whose problems doubtless called more for
statecraft than for theology. It was an age for temporal
rulers rather than for spiritual guides.
The Arabs were engaged in world war, ever conquering,
ever advancing. However much heaven may condemn
[118]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
aggression or proclaim equality of peoples before God,
there could have been no doubt in the minds of men,
victors and vanquished alike, about Arab racial pre-
eminence in that century of triumphant ascendancy.
Across a world as yet minority-Arab and minority-Moslem
ran a network of Arab military garrisons, and peoples of
all nations and languages acknowledged the Arab
sceptre. Within these garrisons the ordinances of holy law
were observed. Outside them the Arabs with a wide tolera-
tion allowed the subject peoples to continue their own
legal usages, practise their own sanctions. The 'people of
the book' that is to say, those having scriptures, namely
Jews, Christians and, for some less clear reason, star-
worshipping Sabians were absolutely free to practise
their own religions subject only to the two special forms
of tribute, a poll tax and a land tax. It was the exception
and not the rule for them to be subjected by an occasional
intolerant and harsh caliph of Damascus to disabilities
such as the restrictive ordinances of Omar II which we
have noticed.
Still a stigma came to attach to the term 'Christian',
Nasrani, i.e. Nazarene, which has not wholly disappeared
from some Moslem lands to this day, in much the same way
that the term Jew once had a contemptuous sound among
Christian societies. In other ways, however, the Arabs
showed what was for those days a broad toleration. They
used no terrorism in their proselytizing. They did not
compel apostasy to Islam, whereas, by contrast, at that
._very time the Christian church was compelling Jews to
apostatize in Spain under dire penalties.
It is doubtful if many of the Umaiyyad provincial
governors really desired conversion of the subject peo-
ples, for it meant loss of a convenient docility as well as
[119]
THE ARABS
loss of taxes which went to support their garrisons. One
governor of Khorasan is indeed known to have put
obstacles in the way of his pious caliph and was recalled.
The religious ends were achieved by his successor but at
the expense of a weakened garrison, and when taxes
came to be reimposed brought on a rebellion which lost
Trans-Oxiana to the Arabs for many years.
The general absence of religious persecution by the
Arabs, however, is well shown by what happened in
Egypt. At the end of the Umaiyyad period the population
of Lower Egypt, then Arab-ruled for nearly a century,
was still predominantly Christian, and five hundred years
passed before the Moslems were in a majority. Persia
afforded yet another example. As the Persians were fire
worshippers, they were not people of the book and,
strictly speaking, were not entitled to keep their lands on
the tributary terms Muhammad had laid down for Jews
and Christians, or indeed to practise their faith. But in
practice they fared little worse for their obduracy. True
there were instances where Persians suffered the confisca-
tion of their properties an exceptional thing to happen
in the light of Omar's liberal land decrees but that was
as punishment by military commanders where they had
too stubbornly resisted the invaders, and such escheated
lands were administered for the common good.
Within the purely Arab or Moslem communities the
theocratic sanctions were those observed. In Islam 're-
ligion is the law and the law is religion. 5 When purely
practised there is no other law, for all law derives from
religious principles, based on religious texts. But these
were not narrowly conceived of in those early centuries,
when the Arabs were in the ascendant ; indeed, great jurists
were to arise and give the law a liberal interpretation,
[120]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
leading to wide development. To be a judge in the Moslem
community a deep study of the Qur'an was the first
requisite, so that the judge or qadhi a term familiar to
the reader of The Arabian Nights was therefore origi-
nally a man of religion, though his office was not in itself
a holy one, for Islam has no priests, no hierarchy, no
consecration for sacred duties. Such officials had been
first sent off by the Caliph Omar to the military camps,
in later times qadhis were sent to the camps of Qairawan
in north Africa and away beyond the Oxus to Bokhara
and Samarkand. They were not limited to purely magis-
terial duties but presided at public prayers and witnessed
marriages, were missionaries, too, and so played an im-
portant part in bringing about the conversion of the non-
Arab populations.
These qadhis, faced almost at once by strange and
complex law problems and seeking in vain for specific
Qur'anic guidance, came to be guided by practices ascribed
to the Prophet. These precedents were codified and,
known as Traditions ^=Sunna, hence the term 'Sunni' for
him who practiced them. To the Sunnis the Traditions had
a validity inferior only to Qur'anic sanctions. By the Shi'as,
the other great branch of Islam, the Traditions were held
to be largely apocryphal, for the source of many of them
was to be found among companions who supported the
first three caliphs whom the Shi'as regarded as usurpers.
Only those traditions attributed to Ali's camp were there-
fore acceptable to them. Hence in details of law the two
main divisions of Islam, which, as we saw, originally
split over the political issue of caliphate succession the
hereditary versus the elective principle came to adopt in
some particulars different law usages.
"The non-Moslems following their own usages were at
[121]
THE ARABS
first in a majority of the population, but soon Moslem
cities appeared where the Beduin military camps had been,
and mixed urban communities, with roots in alien cultures,
grew up, and gradually there came about a change of re-
ligious adherence in favour of the faith of the dominant
race.
The holy law under the Arabs in those first two or
three centuries was essentially progressive and underwent
phases of considerable development. The Moslem Laws
of Evidence in those early days are said to have had no
equal in Europe till the seventeenth century; so also the
Moslem Laws of Contract are claimed to have been a
thousand years ahead of their European counterparts. The
mercantile laws of the Arabs begat bills of exchange; to
their practices we owe our words 'cheque', 'douane', i.e.
diwan, and perhaps 'tariff/ Much of the Code Napoleon
and other modern Western law, also, is held to derive
from the corpus of medieval Arab jurists.
For several centuries while in the ascendant the Arabs
were great reformers. It was mostly after our eleventh
century and during the later period of decay that their
criminal and civil law came to be reduced to the rigid
forms that led to stagnation. The Arabs at their best were
liberal minded. Legal research and the consequent evolu-
tion of new laws was not only unrestricted but encouraged,
so that criminal and civil law differed greatly, not only
between one country and another, but between two periods
In the history of the same country. The Arabs were not
averse to adopting the law usages of other peoples, placed
no hindrance to the extension of alien sanctions where
these did not conflict with the sanctions found in the
Qur'an. Where Qur'anic sanctions were categorically laid
[122]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
down, however, as for instance in the cutting off the hand
for theft or flogging for fornication, the dictates of holy
writ were observed.
There were periods of upheaval when godless gover-
nors took the law into their own hands and acted arbi-
trarily. In an age when 'strong action 5 was admired, strong
action was usually taken, and tyrannous methods, such
as imprisonment and torture to extort confession, were not
unknown in Iraq. How far the spirit of holy law was
abandoned at this time is shown by the conduct of the
prefect of Kufa, a local Judge Jefferies, who under
Hajjaj, the famous mail-fisted governor of Iraq, trans-
fixed and burnt alive ; cut off the hand of one who threat-
ened the life of another ; gave three hundred lashes to a
suspected thief. Kufa, we are told and may well believe it,
enjoyed long spells of freedom from any crime whatever,
and its strong man was promoted to be prefect of Basrah
as well.
The change of dynastic rule from the Umaiyyads to
the Abbasids coincided with a widening scope for religious
law. It was a tendency of the age that came about as a
result of far-reaching social and religious changes. Con-
versions to Islam had steadily been going on to absorb a
large alien element of public opinion. The decay of the
Umaiyyads, as we saw, was brought about largely by the
growing strength of Persian converts. Proselytism had
naturally been followed by a wave of religious fervour;
everywhere there was an intense interest in the Qur'an
and an eager study, doubtless, of its legal aspects. Among
Sunnis, who had extended the basis of holy law by the
addition of Traditions, four schools of jurisprudence
sprang up within the century, preserved in the names of
their founders, Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanbali.
THE ARABS
Such developments in the law were by no means the
only or most important feature of the period which fol-
lowed the change of capital from Damascus to Baghdad.
The functions of the caliph were transformed, and, most
radical of all, perhaps, an end came to the supremacy of
the Arab, as such, within the political system. Under the
caliphs of Damascus the dominant note in the state had
been Arab racial superiority. Victorious wars of expan-
sion had continued to give the imperial Arabs an un-
paralleled national prestige. The caliph himself was an
absolute ruler in an Arab patriarchal setting; the great
offices of state were held by Arabs. With the advent of the
caliphs of Baghdad in the second century after the Prophet
the wars of conquest, chief instrument of Arab supremacy,
had come to an end, the centre of the caliphate moved
east where Arab Moslems were in a minority, and Per-
sians held the upper hand.
The Abbasid caliphs were no longer absolute Arab
rulers but emperors after the old Sassanian model, c accept-
ing a reverence and a manner of address rightly-guided
Caliphs would have rebelled against as blasphemous.' 10 *
They were no longer accessible to their subjects in open
court but surrounded by ministers of state, at first Persians,
in whom were vested great powers. The pomp and luxury
of their courts vastly excelled Damascus and was in an
altogether different world from the rude simplicity of
Medina.
An era of great prosperity was dawning, an age of
refinement in living and an age in which the arts and
sciences flourished. Rich revenues poured in from the
conquered territories, the land tax was now collected from
Moslems and unbelievers alike, though the latter must
still pay their poll tax, too, and the national income
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
steadily grew to vast proportions. The state treasury and
the caliph's privy purse profited together, as later in times
of adversity they suffered together. The most famous of
the Baghdad caliphs, Harun al Rashid, a contemporary
of Charlemagne, was popularly believed to have amassed
a private fortune of nine hundred million dirhams a
mere twenty millions sterling perhaps! which, even
allowing for wild exaggeration, is a safe enough Indica-
tion of phenomenal prosperity.
The caliph, his plentiful palaces, bodyguards and harem
were supported by state expenditure, as were the army
and the civil administration; all descendants of the
Prophet enjoyed state pensions, and poets and musicians
won impulsive and princely rewards in these spacious
days of the eastern caliphate.
The form of government was a thoroughgoing autoc-
racy. The caliph was supported by his wazir, at first a
private and personal duce as it were, who, while in favour,
had supreme powers of patronage and upon whose in-
tegrity and ability depended the just government of the
times. He made and unmade governors, appointed all the
principal civil officers of state and combined in his person
the lucrative functions of an appellate court for the ex-
tensive judiciary of Islam. To the young aspirant, the ear
of the wazir led to place and fortune, and conversely his
opposition meant adversity, until the day when the caliph
lost patience with that particular wazir and relieved him
of his office if not his head.
The reader familiar with the pages of The Arabian
Nights will need no reminding that the Arab-ruled country
of the times was *a man's country.' But it would be unfair
to suppose that this was a peculiarly Arab contribution.
The sex inferiority of women was doubtless part of the
THE ARABS
established order of the universe and man's dominance
over woman a phase of sociological evolution common the
world over.
Doubtless under the Arabs woman's status, though
upheld by religious precepts, deteriorated in the later
centuries. The common Western view, however, that the
woman was at all times repressed under the Arabs, meets
with a vigorous challenge by Judge Pierre Crabites, an
American judge in the Cairo mixed tribunals, who, after a
long experience of Moslem law as administered in the
Egyptian capital, has favoured the thesis that Muhammad
was probably the greatest champion of women's rights
the world has ever seen.
'Muhammad's outstanding contribution, 5 says Judge
Crabites, 'to the cause of woman resides in the property
rights that he conferred upon the wives of his people. The
juridical status of a wife, if so technical a term may be
pardoned, is exactly the same as that of a husband. The
Moslem spouse in so far as her property is concerned, is
as free as a bird. The law permits her to do with her
financial assets whatever she pleases without consulting
her consort. In such matters he has no greater rights than
would have any perfect stranger.' 34 *
Before the Propet's time Arab women's rights of in-
heritance were negligible, and when a man died his sons
inherited his widows as well as his property. A revelation
ensured her an inalienable share in a relative's estate. The
divisions of inheritance were categorically laid down : to
the mother one third of a man's estate unless he had
brothers, in which case one sixth. If a man left but two
daughters two thirds of the estate passed to them, if one
daughter her share was to be one half. Where there were
sons and daughters one share to a daughter and two shares
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
to a son. A husband was to be entitled to one half of his
wife's property if she died without child, otherwise one
quarter, and so on. The general underlying principle was
that the rewards of male relatives, in inheritance, were
double those of the female a principle by no means as
inequitable as it seems, being based on the theory that the
female will be supported by a husband, while the male will
have to support a wife.
The right of bequest among Arabs at death was thus
circumscribed. The Arab cannot will his property so as to
deprive his wife or his children of their rightful share of
his estate; he cannot cut his wife off with less than the
share specified as her right under religious law. By divorce
only will she be deprived of it.
A feature of the marriage contract which Judge Pierre
Crabites singles out for special praise is its fluidity that
any wise provision may be written into it ; thus the girl's
father can reserve the right of the girl to divorce under
certain circumstances or even the right to divorce un-
conditionally, e.g. in the event of the man's remarriage,
or he can require the bridegroom to forego the right of
divorcing his daughter. Moreover, he says, 'A wife,
technically speaking, does not even take her husband's
name. A Moslem girl born Aisha bint Omar (Aisha
daughter of Omar) may marry ten times, but her indi-
viduality is not absorbed by that of her various husbands.
She is not a moon that shines through reflected light.
She is a solar planet, with a name and a legal personality
of her own !'
The law of divorce required the man's utterance, fc l
divorce thee,* to be said three times with an interval of a
month between each occasion the idea being to provide
for a period of three months during which time reconcilia-
[127]
THE ARABS
tion could be effected. As soon as estrangement was felt
between the married couple a family council could be
formed in order to bring about a rapprochement. Divorce
was not encouraged by the Prophet, to whom is attributed
the saying that of the permissible things it was one dis-
tasteful to God. Although there was no lifelong alimony
for the divorced wife the dowry was in itself conceived as
an obstacle to divorce, for the wife was entitled to a
sum equivalent to the dowry paid to her at her wedding,
a sum therefore fixed high when the man was in a gallant
mood. It was fixed at the highest amount compatible with
the social position of the contracting parties and the
ability of the husband to pay. Where the dowry was
small and the poor husband later acquired wealth, the
qadhi in case of divorce assessed the sum on the husband's
improved status instead of the original contract.
The Prophet not only conferred rights on women, he
taught men to treat wives considerately and humanely,
not preferring one over another: the gift of a robe to
one, for instance, was to entail robes all round; and so
with conjugal felicity: he brought amelioration in mar-
riage, divorce and inheritance laws hence early Islam
'under rightly guided Caliphs' is held to have protected
her interests and given her a status which had never been
hers before. In later times, however, the generous spirit
waned, practice fell away from the precept, and low
standards came to be the established fashion.
In the medieval state the man could take not merely
the four wives which religious law permitted at any
one time, but slave concubines without limit a practice
which present interpretation considers to have been a
violation of Islamic canons and enlightened Arabs frown
on wherever they meet with it in their midst today. He
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
could marry an unbeliever so long as she was a 'chaste
woman of the Book', e.g., a Jewess, a Christian or a
Sabian, but not an idolatress, e.g., a Hindu. He could
marry his slave girl if he first of all freed her, or could
cohabit with her as his concubine, without marriage, so
long as she was not an idolatress. The children of con-
cubines were legitimate; indeed, many of the later
Abbasid caliphs were sons of concubines, a parallel found
today in some aristocratic families in Arab countries.
Concubinage with free women was forbidden. First-
cousin marriages were common; they are still the rule
rather than the exception in many parts of tribal Arabia,
where the man has the right to the hand of the daughter
of his uncle (father's brother) whatever the disparity of
age, she on the other hand having no corresponding right
to his. The prohibited degrees of marriage were for the
most part similar to those of the Old Testament, though
a Moslem may not marry his niece as is permitted by the
Jews, nor may he marry two sisters or even two unrelated
women who, as children, had been suckled by the same
wet nurse ; the same stricture applied also to cohabitation
with two concubines. Brother and sister marriages, forbid-
den by Islam, may have affected Persian practice, where,
under Zoroastrianism, such unions are said to have been
permissible.
The woman could not have more than one husband
at a time an inequality justified in the interests of the
child that is to say, to ensure the establishment without
doubt of its male parent. Although the spirit of the law
had been to give women new rights and protect those
rights, practice in unenlightened circles led to abuses, and
the dowry for the girl often came to be a cash payment to
her parents, so that with the poor and needy a rich old
[129]
THE ARABS
suitor was probably preferred to a poor young one, the
girl's inclinations on the occasion of her first marriage
being subordinated to her interests as conceived of by her
parents. A marriage contract of Morocco, quoted by Levi,
is as follows
'Glory be to God, the Lord of the Worlds I
'The honourable Kaddur, being of age and living in
Algiers, a trader by calling, son of Sulayman, has con-
tracted a marriage by God's blessing . . . with the noble
virgin Fatima, now passed the period of puberty, 18 years
of age, daughter of Muhammad bin Ali, weaver, domiciled
in Algiers. The marriage is contracted in consideration of
a dower of blessed augury amounting to 30 douros, of
which half is at once due, before consummation of the
marriage, and the remaining half payable within four
years. The husband will only be acquitted of this debt
by lawful means. The bride's father was contracted in her
name, and this by virtue of the powers conferred on him
by God and after obtaining her consent, expressed by
silence, which is considered the equivalent to consent. The
husband has appeared in person: he has accepted the
contract, the offer and the acceptance have been made as
required by Law.
'All that precedes has been witnessed (by two wit-
nesses).' 9 *
The usual procedure of the Arab wedding was that on
the day of the nuptials guests, male and female, were bid-
den to the house of the girl's father, the men forgathered
in one part and the women, veiled and secluded, in another.
The qadhi or imam called forth the witnesses, a male
representative of the bride, another of the bridegroom, or,
in the absence of one male, two female witnesses, though
to have all witnesses female was not lawful, the presence
[130]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
of one male witness being imperative. The witnesses then
signified their agreement to the terms of the marriage,
whereupon the qadhi took the hands of the bride and
bridegroom and held their hands together in such a way
that their thumbs touched, while all present recited the
opening chapter of the Qur'an.
In a polygynous society the state of lifelong spinster-
hood for a girl was extremely rare. The girl was normally
married for the first time at the age of thirteen or fourteen
girls reach physical maturity at an earlier age in the
East than the West; she was usually given no choice in
the matter of her first husband any more than she is today
in backward Arabian communities that was her father's
concern. She was generally not consulted in the matter, be-
ing of tender age and without knowledge of the world.
Some such procedure as this was followed. The mother of
a son old enough to take a wife approached the mother
of the girl she thought desirable, and if they both agreed
to the match the suitor approached the girl's father, or in
default of one, her nearest male kinsman to arrange mat-
ters. A marriage contract was then drawn up specifying
the dowry and other legal obligations. Marriage being a
civil contract, it could be performed by a qadhi (not in
the mosque, however) or by any Moslem provided there
were two reputable witnesses.
Another and exceptional form of marriage that came
to be practised among the Shi'a Moslems of Iraq and
Persia, more particularly during pilgrimage to their sacred
shrines, was the mut'a marriage, a temporary union for a
fixed term of years or months or weeks or even days, as
the case might be. It did not entail reference to a woman's
kin and was practised by a limited and special poor class
of townswoman. It was a system that lent itself to abuse,
[131]
THE ARABS
although perfectly within the Shi'a religious law, the
children of such so-called marriages being legitimate* But
as we have seen, generally speaking, the female member
of the Moslem family was carefully protected and honour-
ably betrothed, and her honour, involving the family
honour, was counted of the greatest concern*
Divorce under the Arabs, as we have seen, involved an
outright payment based on the dowry and did not entail
lifelong alimony. In spite of the difficulties which the
Prophet set in the way the man could normally divorce
quite easily without recourse to a court by uttering the
simple formula already noticed three times. The woman
could not obtain divorce so lightly, though mental disease,
infectious disease, cruel behaviour and other similar
grounds were recognized as sufficient; physical imperfec-
tion in either party gave grounds for annulment, as also
the false description in the marriage contract of the bride
as a virgin. The mother had custody of the children dur-
ing infancy and thereafter the father, the age for boys
and girls varying with the sect of Islam to which the
parents belonged. A divorced woman must wait three
months before marrying again, the widow four months
and ten days. Similiarly, if a man bought a female slave
he must allow the necessary time to pass before she could
be his concubine, in order to obviate the risk of doubtful
parenthood.
The veiling of women is thought to have been rare in
the early days of the Arab period. The common Western
view that It is Arab or Islamic in origin is contested by
educated Arabs who are opposed to the practice today and
who hold that the only veiling required in Islam is the cov-
ering of the head and neck, not the face. Be that as it may,
the practice of close veiling is one that has survived only
[132]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
among Moslem communities and is still the rule rather
than the exception in most Arab countries.
Such Arab authorities suppose that the custom was in
origin Persian or Byzantine, that in the Arab period it
first was adopted by the wives of Baghdad caliphs and
the great ladies about the courts, so that it was a fashion
of rank; hence, naturally, it spread downwards and out-
wards.
In the early period, they hold, it was nowhere popular
and it never took root among the peasantry, where the
female continued to work unveiled side by side with her
menfolk in the fields as she does today though not in
Arabia but it gradually acquired rigidity in the towns
and was made law by the Caliph al Qadir Billah (eleventh
century) who ordered that women must wear a veil when
mixing with men and appearing in the mosque or other
public places.
So it has continued down to this day. The girl born in
strictest circles must, on reaching maturity, wear a veil
and never again show her face to any male except her hus-
band and those of her relatives within the prohibited de-
grees of marriage. For a woman to expose to the public
gaze more than her hands and her feet (ankles and wrists
must be concealed) came to be regarded as shameful, the
rigour of veiling and seclusion increasing the higher her
status in the social scale. Here the slave girl and the
peasant girl were at a great advantage, braving the world
with naked face and fancy free. But al Qadir Billah's
proscription was a great blow to the educated class of
woman who, up to this time, played a part in the life of
the empire, and from the time of these restrictions in the
eleventh century the position of the woman under the
Arabs deteriorated.
[133]
THE ARABS
The harem system, the practice of enforced seclusion
Persian women, it is believed, were secluded long before
the coming of the Arabs was soon established, and
women were now confined to their houses by force of
public opinion. They seldom went out at all ; never alone
and rarely by day, and of course social intercourse between
the sexes was impossible. This banishment of women from
the streets and from society is a noticeable feature of most
oriental towns to this day.
It became the fashion for women of the wealthy classes
to be secluded in a part of the house by themselves and
be waited upon by eunuchs, though the practice of muti-
lating slaves for these duties had been expressly for-
bidden by the Prophet himself. These social practices
led, moreover, to the gradual effacement of women from
public festivities and from public worship in the Friday
mosques, in contrast to the earlier days when women not
only attended mosques but gave lectures in them.
Such usages which have been handed down to the back-
ward Arabs of our day are responsible for the current
Western view that women under the Arabs were through-
out a lower order of creation. In those first centuries of
the Arab period, however, the position of the Arab woman
was very different. She was not closely veiled and little
more segregated than her European or Asiatic sister of
the time; indeed, in Spain she continued to mix freely
with men and to pray openly in the mosques. There had
been no prejudice against her education in early Islam, and
the upper-class women were literate and accomplished
indeed, a millennium ago when Al Azhar University of
Cairo was first opened it was attended by men and women
alike; and the Arab jurist Abu Hanifa could declare in
our eighth century that woman was as much entitled to
[134]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
practise the profession of law as man. In Iraq, in Egypt
and in Spain during the enlightened periods it was the
same : women played notable parts Sukaina, Nafisat al
Ilm, a great-great-granddaughter of the Prophet, Umm
Salma, the wife of the first caliph of Baghdad, Zubaida,
the wife of Harun al Rashid, Khadija, the sister of
Saladin in Egypt, and in Spain the wife of Abdul Rah-
man III, to mention but a few. Some were devoted to let-
ters, some to good works, and colleges, orphanages, hostels
for the blind, the aged and the infirm, still proudly bear
the names of women founders.
In these selfsame days chivalry found its way into
Europe by way of Spain. To Spain it had come from the
eastern lands of the Arabs. Hence it would seem that the
belief which persists in the West concerning the general
degradation of women under the Arabs is based on ob-
servances of later decadence; in reality the Arabs at
their best were perhaps the most chivalrous people in the
world.
Slavery, of course, persisted all through the Arab
period. It was a recognized and legitimate institution of
society. It had existed from time immemorial, was sanc-
tioned by Judaism and survived the early Christian cen-
turies. Muhammad himself was clearly a resolute opponent
of all the evils of slavery and wrought such reforms for
its amelioration as were possible in his time. Manumission
of slaves was not only praised but gave atonement for
small sins. 'Your brothers/ he taught, c are they who
are your servants, God having placed them under your
care ; and he whose brother has been placed under his care
must feed him with that which he eats, and clothe him
with that wherewith he clothes himself. Do not ask them
to do more than they can, and if you have assigned them
[135]
THE ARABS
a task greater than they are able to cope with, then give
them the help they require/
The Arabs of subsequent generations were to take the
word for the spirit and look for implied sanction in it. Ac-
cording to the most enlightened present-day interpreta-
tions of Islam there was never any warrant for the keeping
of slaves other than prisoners of war, nor should slaves
have been bought and sold. Under medieval caliphs, how-
ever, slaves were freely bought and sold, bequeathed and
inherited, as they still are in Arabia. They were inferior
beings, suffering certain recognized civil and social dis-
abilities.
Yet the attitude of the Arabs to their slaves removed
the stigma elsewhere attaching to slave status, for a
feature of present-day Arabian slavery is the general
absence of a grovelling and abject mentality, which the
untravelled European may naturally suppose inevitable.
*The slave is the slave of his master, but otherwise as free
as you/ runs an Omani saying. Still, generally speaking,
the blood-feud scale of values ran : a freeman for a free-
man, a woman for a woman, a slave for a slave.
The essential democracy of the Islamic system, how-
ever, allowed slaveborn individuals to rise to command
armies, to govern provinces, to acquire great wealth.
Under the Arabs slaves rose to found Moslem dynasties
in Egypt and elsewhere, and many famous caliphs of
Baghdad had slave mothers. But these were exceptional
slaves. The vast majority of the class did the menial
offices and the hard work.
The holy law provided some ways in which a slave
could win freedom: a concubine, for instance, who had
borne her master children became free ; a slave of either
sex who came into possession of an owner within a certain
[136]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
degree of blood relationship was automatically freed; a
slave might, with his master's consent, redeem himself by
purchase or labour, though in the latter case he remained
under his master's protection. This was perhaps a rare
thing to happen, for the master had the right to hire out a
slave to work for him, as is practised in the Persian Gulf
pearl fisheries to this day, or to use his slave as a pledge.
Slaves were a valuable property in medieval times, and
doubtless only those masters who had religious scruples
conceded slaves such rights as they were entitled to. Buy-
ing and selling slaves was a highly profitable business,
not only in the Arab countries but with them the Slavonic
peoples ominously preserving in name the memory of the
role they played. The Venetians are said to have had a
slave market in Rome itself in the eighth century, and
the slave market of the Moors at Cordova, two centuries
later, was famous for its wares of fair captives from
northern Spain. Thousands of white slaves from Central
Asia were drawn into the eastern caliphate by way of
Samarkand, while black slaves swarmed in the bazaars of
Samarra and Baghdad.
Early in the Arab conquests it became an article of
faith that there could be no enslavement of Moslems,
though In the tenth century this rule was relaxed by the
sect of Carmathians in Arabia itself on the grounds that
only they were true Moslems, and as late as the nine-
teenth century Turcomans are known to have suffered
a similar illusion. In our sixteenth, seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries Turkish and Barbary corsairs hunted and
enslaved Christian mariners in the Mediterranean, some,
very daring, reaching parts of Ireland and the Bristol
Channel ; and monks who were sent on missions of ransom
brought back harrowing stories of the life in the galleys.
[137]
THE ARABS
One of the most famous victims was, of course, Cervantes,
who spent thus five years of his life in chains.
But let us not be forgetful of our own record, for but
a brief century ago Britain and America practised slavery
in their tobacco and sugar plantations, and Gladstone as
a young Member of Parliament could make his maiden
speech in defense of the system. At one time Britain en-
joyed a monopoly of importing slaves into the Spanish
colonies, and advertisements for slaves appeared in the
most reputable of our newspapers. Moreover, plantation
slavery was incomparably more inhuman than the domestic
slavery of the Arabs of the medieval period.
The common people under the caliphs of Baghdad
enjoyed greater liberty and greater prosperity than could
be found in any other country whatsoever. Personal
cleanliness was a feature of the Arab world as the lack
of it was characteristic of contemporary Europe this
arising doubtless from the frequent ablutions required by
Moslem prayer and other rules of life. While in Europe
the serfs were bound to the lands they cultivated and the
artisans still had their servile status, their counterparts
under the Arabs, the smiths and the cultivators, were free
men. Difference of rank and wealth existed, of course,
but without the rigid distinctions of society in medieval
Europe. There was no hindrance to education. Learning
was held in the highest respect, freedom of thought was
for several centuries encouraged and secular subjects
taught in the mosques. Decay came later when the Arabs
came to be satisfied with a way of life as conservative
and hidebound as in earlier times it had been liberal and
light-giving.
The social structure, while containing features repellent
in a twentieth-century view, must in fairness be compared
[138]
THE MEDIEVAL STATE
with other systems contemporary with itself. More de-
pends on the spirit of a social system than the letter of its
regulations, and in the Middle Ages Eastern enlighten-
ment was pre-eminent in the world, and the religion of the
Arabs insisted with the greatest emphasis on humani-
tarianism.
To conceive of the Arab system as being in the likeness
of our own, with a grafting onto it of its less pleasant
features, is wholly misleading ; it had another and wholly
differing ethos: it was in essence as in origin patriarchal.
The approved relationships between man and woman, par-
ents and children, masters and servants approximated
to the ideals of Abraham rather than to those of Lenin.
It is not so much that one was four thousand years behind
the other as that they were products of two differing en-
vironments and two utterly opposed philosophies.
If under the Arabs women as a sex enjoyed less of the
social and political liberties than they enjoy under modern
European civilization mixed dancing, mixed bathing and
the like are still objectionable, of course, to the orthodox
yet no woman went unmarried and was thereby un-
naturally debarred from motherhood, and motherhood
was held by Arabs of all time in the prof oundest respect.
If slaves were deprived of all political privileges there
is still less difference by far in the material rewards of life
between the freeman and the slave in 'subsistence cultures',
such as in Arabia today, than between the 'haves 1 and
'have-nots' in our European civilization. This is said in
no way to slur over those features of the medieval Arab
way of life which in a twentieth-century view are re-
pugnant, but as an indication that in practice it had a hu-
manity of its own, a humanity untainted by the worst
features of our modern economic industrialism* Without
THE ARABS
a wide humanity, indeed, the old Arab system could
scarcely have displaced the earlier systems of so many
different peoples across the medieval world from the
Himalayas to the Atlas, and survived in a large measure
down to this day.
'What struck me even In the decay and poverty,' wrote
an Englishman a few years back, 'was the joyousness of
that life compared with anything I had seen in Europe.
These peoples seemed quite independent of our cares of
life, our anxious clutching after wealth, our fear of death.
And then their charity ! No man in the cities of the Mos-
lem Empire ever died of hunger or exposure at his neigh-
bour's gate!'
[140]
CHAPTER VI
Arab Civilization: The Arts
In the Middle Ages art was first and foremost a religious
expression. We instinctively identify the great orders of
medieval art with the creeds that shaped them, for however
clearly certain elements in their composition and technical
procedure may unite them in common ancestry, they were
moulded into distinct entities by religious influences?**
A. H. CHRISTIE
T
JL HE INSPIRATION of Moslem arts owed much then to
the Arabs an odd thought when we remember that the
Arabs were an artless people. For the desert hosts that
vanquished Greeks and Persians originated, as we saw,
in a culture conspicuously devoid of any artistic tradition.
Indeed, as they swept across the civilized world of their
time they carried with them a suspicious attitude towards
art if not an aversion to it, for was not the graven image
anathema and a decoration in the likeness of man or bird
or beast an affront to the true faith, did not silken apparel
and vessels of gold, proper enough for the mansions of
the hereafter, come under religious interdiction here be-
low?
Now in the lands the Arabs overran they came upon arts
highly flourishing, arts with a long local history going
back to the civilizations of the Nile and the Euphrates.
THE ARABS
In the former, Christianity had arisen a few centuries
earlier and remoulded a new and beautiful Byzantine
art ; in the latter the Eastern genius still survived among
the Persians. But the arts of unbelieving Greeks and
Persians, however superb, were little better than heathen
abominations to the rude puritan invaders in the seventh
century. Yet it was Islam, borne by these unlettered desert
men, that was destined to set the world aflame, fuse the
great artistic inheritances of the ages and bring in a new
and splendid tradition.
The Prophet's ban on the portrayal of human and
animal forms was of course scarcely propitious. Indeed,
it atrophied the fine arts from the first. Under a newborn
vigorous Islam there could be no great statuary in a Greek
or Roman sense, no more sculptures like those of ancient
Susa and Persepolis, no great painting such as that of
the later Italian, Dutch or Spanish schools. Islam not
only discouraged the fine arts, it forbade them in God's
name, and its first rude votaries were active iconoclasts, so
that our later Western schools of both painting and
sculpture were not able to profit from any Moslem in-
heritance but grew straight out of the classical tradition.
One shining exception 'brightens the period of Arab
civilization, and that is architecture. Here there was no
ban. Indeed, the ritualistic requirements of the new faith
called into existence new needs, while glorious examples
of cathedrals and temples enshrining Christianity and
other rival religions stood before rising generations of
Arabs, provocatively challenging. Thus it was that
Saracenic architecture came to have its birth and develop-
ment in the Moslem congregational place of worship, the
Friday mosque.
The first callow invaders from the deserts could scarcely
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
have remained unimpressed in the face of the architectural
splendour they encountered. Beyond the Euphrates, Sas-
sanian palaces stood near the sites of ancient Babylonian
cities, some but recently decayed, some still inhabited ; over
the Jordan, the Greco-Roman Decapolis formed a group
of cities of arcaded streets and marble pavements, colon-
naded forums and splendid amphitheatres and temples;
Alexandria, a great Greek seaport already famed for
close on a thousand years, possessed one of the archi-
tectural wonders of the world, the Manara, a famous
lighthouse built by Ptolemy Suter, which was destined
to give the word 'minaret' to the mosque tower. But a
still greater wealth than these had fallen to the Arabs,
namely, the inherited artistic traditions at the back of
such monuments the accumulated technical skill of the
conquered peoples*
The Arabs, before their emergence from Arabia, had
raised a mosque at Medina after their own rude fashion-
ing, an unpretentious building with a roof of palm
branches covered with mud and supported on palm trunks.
Under the immediately succeeding caliphs of Medina the
first mosques outside Arabia sprang up at Jerusalem,
Fustat and Kufa, still, doubtless, simple and chaste, in
keeping with the puritanism of the times, but necessarily
more elegant from the excellence of ready-made columns
and other building material taken from the ruins of
classical temple or palace and from the skill of competent
local craftsmen who raised them.
By the time this first spiritual phase of the caliphate
had run its course and an imperial Arab dynasty had risen
at Damascus a generation of Arabs had grown up amid
alien cultural influences who had become conscious of
great architecture, conscious of their own deficiency, and
[143]
THE ARABS
were persuaded that Islam must have worthy shrines,
fitting, too, for her votaries as men of the dominant
race. Already the Arab conquerors of Damascus had
annexed for their own use one half of the magnificent
Christian church of St John the Baptist, in origin a Roman
temple, and before very long acquired the whole of it, a
precedent to be followed at Cordova in Spain within the
century; for where the subject peoples came to give up
Christianity in favor of Islam old churches were auto-
matically changed into mosques. The faithful thus became
familiar with architectural splendour associated with re-
ligion and formed standards which they came naturally
to adopt in their own new religious buildings.
The main features of the mosque, as it is known today,
had already appeared by the time of the first Damascus
caliph. The building was oriented towards Mecca, the
direction indicated in the appropriate wall, facing which
the worshippers lined up in a long row; this wall formed
the long axis of the sanctuary, and midway along it was
the mihrab, a praying niche corresponding somewhat to
the apse of a Christian church. The mosque had its pulpit;
its screen or grill (within which the caliph worshipped),
recalling a chancel screen; its minaret, the parallel of a
church tower, where the muezzin the Moslem precentor,
as it were ascended to chant the call to prayer this a
distinction from church bells or the clappers which pre-
ceded them in Christian usage ; and its font in the court-
yard for the necessary Moslem ablutions before prayer.
These ritualistic needs were gradual developments.
The first mosque in Egypt had no mihrab, but a stone was
set up in the direction of Mecca; indeed, in the first
mosque of all at Medina the worshippers, led by the
Prophet, at first faced Jerusalem after the manner of the
[144]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
Jews. So, too, the mosques built in Mesopotamia during
the next century did not adopt the praying niche of rival
Syria but had their own device of three arched openings.
The Egyptian mosque was the first to have a pulpit, an
innovation which, by elevating the preacher, provoked
the democratic wrath of the Caliph Omar, so that its
adoption came only after his day. If the screen is rightly
ascribed to his successor, following the lesson of Omar's
assassination, it belongs to Medina, while the first minaret
to be built is believed to have appeared only at the end
of the century, its function having presumably first been
suggested and served by one of the four Roman towers
of the temple-church-mosque of Damascus.
At first it was the conquered peoples who alone could
provide the architects, masons, paviors and all the sub-
sidiary craftsmen which fine building entailed, yet it was
the Arabs who, by creating the needs and supplying the
will and commandment, brought about a great archi-
tectural renaissance and, in the course of time, a new
school. It was, indeed, the very vastness of their conquests
that brought together the two great classical building tra-
ditions of the time and so led to the new synthesis.
These two traditions were the stone-building tradition
of the West and the brick-and-plaster tradition of the
East. The former, belonging naturally to the stony coun-
tries of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond Egypt,
Syria, North Mesopotamia, Armenia was exemplified
in the solid, stately, naked masonry of Egyptian temple
or Byzantine cathedral ; the latter was a tradition rooted
in the mud plains of Mesopotamia, extending eastwards
through Persia and across the Oxus to Samarkand, the
old Babylonian-Sassanian brick tradition, the appeal of
which lay in its lighter shapes under a mantle of exquisite
THE ARABS
ornamentation of glazed tiles and mosaics, sumptuous
interiors of stucco, carved and painted panelling, coloured
glass and similar features of a richly decorative oriental
art.
The earliest Arab architecture of the Umaiyyad period
the Great Mosque of Damascus which was the re-
modelled church of St John, the Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem and the Mosque of Uqba at Qairawan be-
longed to the stonework tradition, proper both to their
geography and the prevailing political influence of the
day. With the change of government to Baghdad, under
the Abbasids, the brick-and-plaster tradition of the Per-
sians came to be the dominating influence and continued to
be so for the next four centuries. Not only did the first
great mosques built in eighth-century Mesopotamia be-
long to this tradition, but also those built in the im-
mediately succeeding centuries in Egypt and north Africa.
This wave of oriental tradition, sweeping westwards to
invade the stone-building countries, was a natural conse-
quence of the diffusion of Islam. Autocratic governments
sent bodies of craftsmen skilled in the arts of one tradi-
tion to the lands of the other ; the common language and
religion encouraged enterprising craftsmen on their own
account to move to courts and cities whose star was in the
ascendant; the annual pilgrimage brought men of wealth
and taste as well as craftsmen from the remotest corners
of the Arab conquests through countries and cities having
different building traditions, and what they saw to be
novel or attractive was carried back and adopted in their
own lands; and finally, the great Asiatic inroads of Turks
and Mongols later drove craftsmen westwards from lands
that were the source of so much artistic inspiration. Thus
across the world from Merv to Marakkesh a continuous
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
permeation of common ideas brought about an archi-
tecture of that distinctive shape and quality by which we
now recognize it.
The foreign visitor cannot but be impressed by some
of the beautiful and arresting features of Moslem archi-
tecture, notably, perhaps, massive domes and lofty min-
arets that raise themselves above flat-roofed cities. If he
has travelled as far afield as Egypt or the Holy Land,
Persia or India, he will have experienced the effect of dome
and minaret in combination an entrancing outline against
a brilliant Eastern night. If north Africa and Spain are
the limit of his wanderings he will have missed the great
domes and the circular minarets, though horseshoe arches
with a characteristically exaggerated pinch forming the
portal of mosque and city wall will have struck a novel and
pleasing note. If he has been privileged to enter the walled
seclusion of a great mosque (intolerance will have
thwarted him in Morocco and Persia) and passed by way
of arcaded cloisters across the spacious courtyard, scene of
ritualistic ablutions, to the roofed sanctuary, he will there
have met with a luxuriance of interior effect he may not
have expected in the service of the puritanical religion of
the Arab Prophet.
But it is the exteriors of the famous mosques, particu-
larly the domed ones, which are at first so impressive. The
dome became, from the first, a favourite device of the
Arabs. As a traditional tomb form it is met with in
earlier buildings, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem, for instance it was well known, of course, in
the lands of the conquests as far back as Roman times. The
Arabs at first placed it in the mosque over and just in
front of the praying niche* Later on it became, in Egypt,
the central feature of the smaller tomb mosques of the
[147]
THE ARABS
caliphs, some mosques being given twin domes. The build-
ing of these domes, the transition from a square substruc-
ture through an octagonal phase and thence to the circle,
effected by arches across the corners, led to the develop-
ment of brilliant devices of corbelled masonry with pen-
dentive carvings, a feature for which Moslem architecture
is distinguished. In the tomb mosque of Egypt one minaret
later came to be the fashion in place of two or even four,
and this was usually built over the doorway, as had been
the custom in Iraq.
Domes under Islamic development became infinitely
various. 'In Cairo the dome form was usually stilted, in
Persia and Turkestan bulbous or ovoid domes were pre-
ferred, while in Constantinople the mosques had low By-
zantine domes. Externally the stone domes of Egypt were
decorated with lace-like patterning in the fifteenth cen-
tury: in Persia they were covered with dazzling glazed
tiles. Stalactite pendentives supported them, and indeed
stalactites were used everywhere, often in excess, and
sometimes hanging from the ceilings like the "pendants"
of our English fan vaults. But whereas the Saracen dome
had little influence on our Renaissance domes in the West,
it seems possible that Muhammadan minarets of the grace-
ful type, found especially in Cairene buildings of the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, may have influenced the de-
sign of the later Renaissance campanili of Italy, and hence
some of Wren's fine city steeples.' 13 *
One of the notable characteristics of the Persian tradi-
tion was its roundnesses. The minarets were round in con-
trast to the square type of north Africa and Spain; the
corners of walls were rounded, too, this a relic, of course,
of a mud-brick ancestry when sharp corners, being most
susceptible to damage, must be avoided. But with the
THE ARABS
spread of the round and chamfered forms to the stone
countries they were copied in stone and so persisted and
became characteristic of the later stone buildings of Islam.
This feature of Arab architecture is credited by scholars
with having begotten a notable line of developments which
were to flourish, too, in Europe. *It is not a long step,'
says Ernest Richmond, 22 * 'to evolve from a rounded corner
the conception of an engaged shaft, and from an engaged
shaft to conceive the device of an independent corner col-
umn, both of which are features of Moslem architecture
from very early times, first appearing in brick as in the
engaged shafts at the corners of the brick piers ; then In
the form of independent shafts in stone or in marble
placed at the angles of entrance recesses ... or at any
corner where their appearance might be considered pleas-
ing, as, for instance, on either side of a mihrab or on
either side of a window in a minaret.'
And to this introduction of engaged shafts at the
angles of piers and edges of columns the system of vault-
ing so important in our later Gothic architecture is held
to be under a great debt. Vaulting, based on intersecting
arches, may originally have evolved in Armenia or Persia,
but it seems to have found its way into the ecclesiastical
architecture of Europe by way of Spain, where examples
of it belong to Immediately preceding centuries. Gothic
architecture Is held by some to have derived its pointed
arch, its multifoil windows and ornamental battlements
from the East, while its tracery patterning on surfaces is
also a feature of the earlier Arab period. The horseshoe
arch, suited best perhaps to low squat buildings and sup-
ported on the slenderest of pillars, both features so char-
acteristic of Arab buildings, made no appeal to
contemporary European architects with their desire for
[150]
SANCTUARY SCREEN AND LAMP OF THE MOSQUE
OF SULTAN BARQUQ: extra muros.
(From L'Art Arabe, Presse d'Avennfs]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
perpendicular forms. The Moslem architects paid the
penalty for their too-slender supports by having to fortify
them with straight timber rods extending from column to
column to us an eyesore even in some of their most
famous monuments.
Bright and garish decoration, a characteristic of Mos-
lem architecture in Africa and Spain as well as in Asia,
is of Perso-Mesopotamian ancestry. It sprang from the
need of a mantle for inferior surfaces of naked brick and
timber. Mosques everywhere, the mosque of the Dome
of the Rock in Jerusalem, as well as the Mosques of All
at Najaf and Husain in Kerbela, are thus clothed in a
luxurious Persian dress. In Jerusalem, for instance, the
dome is covered with glazed tiles, the substructure of glass
mosaics, edged with dados of marble with windows of
coloured glass or filled with Intricate traceries ; elsewhere
domes are often completely covered with gold. For devices
so splendid the crafts of wood carver and metalworker, of
workers in plaster, mosaics and marble, makers of glazed
earthenware and tilers must have been at a high degree
of perfection, indeed one that has perhaps never been
surpassed.
In the matter of decorative design the craftsmen, for-
bidden by religion to copy naturalistic forms, were driven
to seek expression in other channels. Thus came a prolific
invention of new patterns, at first geometrical, later in
floral traceries, patterns of great Intricacy, delicacy and
charm which were used in stucco, in glazed tiles in mosaics,
in wood and metal and every other medium. This orna-
mentation gave Its most characteristic imprint to the
Moslem minor arts. By its name, 'arabesque', it Is most
familiar to us. The Arabic character, an exquisite orna-
ment in itself, susceptible of angular Kufic and other varia-
THE ARABS
tion, was another favourite design. The craftsmen of
medieval Europe flatteringly imitated it and so came un-
wittingly to adorn the coin of a Christian king and the
cross of a Christian country with a characteristic Islamic
text from the Qur'an.
Persian influences continued to survive in Egyptian ar-
chitecture under the Fatimids even after the Abbasid yoke
had been thrown off. One of the great monuments of the
period, the Al Azhar Mosque, famous today as the Theo-
logical University of Cairo, shows this with its tiled bands
of Kufic inscriptions round the minaret, gilded bands of
stucco inscriptions in the interior and pierced arabesques in
the stone grills of the window openings. But when a
Kurdish dynasty succeeded and the Seljuq invasion of Asia
Minor drove stone-building craftsmen, both Christians
and Moslems, to take refuge in Egypt, there was a gradual
creeping back to the ancient stone tradition.
Two new mosque forms were thence to appear, the
theological school mosque and the tomb mosque. In the
tomb mosques the fagade came to undergo architectural
treatment ; stone entrances in the form of giant archways
were recessed in the walls, the roof of these being beauti-
fully shaped in corbelled stonework. While in the school
mosque the old flat roof on rafters gave place to the
vaulted roof of stone ancestry. This school-mosque innova-
tion, associated with the short-lived dynasty founded by
the famous Saladin, was intended to teach Sunni rites and
to purge Egypt of the Shi'a tenets of its late Fatimid
rulers. The visitor to Morocco will doubtless also recall
the famous madarsas of Fez and Marakkesh. The long
axis of the building was now aligned differently, the shrine
being subordinated to the courtyard, around which stu-
dents' cells were placed, and another feature, the barrel
[152]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
vault of the school mosque, came henceforth to be asso-
ciated in Islam with education.
Under the next dynasty Egypt came to build entirely in
stone, turning the ornamental designs of the brick-and-
plaster traditions of the Persians into the new medium.
It was this age when for two hundred and fifty years
Egypt was ruled by the slave dynasty of Mamlukes of
Turkish and Circassian blood that oddly enough con-
stitutes her age of greatest architectural splendour. The
final expulsion of the crusaders, who for centuries had
driven a wedge between Egypt and Asia Minor, brought
the Mamlukes into touch both with the Christian archi-
tecture of Palestine and Syria and with Seljuq architecture
beyond, where the splendid stone-building traditions of
Armenians and Byzantines survived. And this, together
with the great wealth which the Mamlukes derived from
the control of all trade between Europe and the East
for the Cape of Good Hope route had not yet been dis-
covered provided the means of raising in Cairo (A.IX
12501500) a series of monuments which, according to
the brilliant analysis of a great authority, 22 * is unsur-
passed in Moslem architecture. The glory of Cairo came
to an end with its conquest by the Turks, and hence an
army of medieval craftsmen turned for a livelihood, as
by Islamic precedent, to the new court that had arisen
Constantinople.
In Palestine and Syria the crusades brought the build-
ing of fine mosques to a complete standstill. From the end
of the ninth to the end of the twelfth century military
architecture monopolized the scene, the only notable ex-
ception being the reconstruction of the mosque of the
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, a work of the tenth
century. But defensive walls and solid fortresses kept the
[153]
THE ARABS
masons fully occupied, especially during those next two
centuries when the Holy Land was being overrun by Chris-
tian invaders from the West.
If the Prankish builders, brought by the crusaders, made
contributions in the form of churches and military works,
they also learned a good deal from the monuments of the
Saracens, and they carried^back novel ideas and practices
to Eurbpe. One such feature was machicolation. The
machicoulis consisted of a platform projecting out high in
the wall of a fortress or city rampart in which was a trap-
door through which boiling oil or arrows could be dropped
on an enemy. This somewhat inhospitable device seems
first to have appeared in a gateway tower of the city walls
of Cairo, when constructed anew of stone, by the famous
Armenian general, Badr al Jumali (eleventh century),
but it was too neat and effective a feature to be missed by
the crusaders and soon was to make its appearance in the
medieval architecture of Winchester and Norwich, where
it survives to this day. Another borrowing found in our
medieval castles is the crooked entrance Inside the gate-
way, designed to curb the attackers' onslaught when they
had gained the gate, a feature the visitor to the citadel of
Aleppo (ascribed largely to Saladin) will have seen the
prototype of and the visitor to the Alhambra at Granada
may recall.
Domestic architecture during the Arab period, judged
by its relics, does not seem to have been particularly note-
worthy* The first Arab camps of Kufa and Basrah had
been made of reeds, probably a collection of local madhifs,
a thatched tunnel of hayrick-like proportions such as are
met with nowadays as guesthouses among the marsh Arabs
of the lower Euphrates. But later peacetime generations
of Arabs soon took to the manner of living of their better-
[154]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
housed urban subjects. The second Abbasid caliph, in AJX
762, founded the capital city of Baghdad, a city of yellow
brick, which grew to be one of the most splendid metrop-
olises of the world and remained so for nearly five hun-
dred years till the Mongols came and utterly destroyed it.
Mesopotamian domestic architecture was naturally Asiatic
in feeling, whereas the houses of Syrian and Egyptian
Arabs were of east Mediterranean type. But rich men in
the spacious days of the Abbasids in Mesopotomia, the
Fatimids and Mamlukes in Egypt and the Umaiyyads in
Spain built palaces for themselves which developed com-
mon features.
The typical Moslem house of the more pretentious sort
was built round double courtyards, the outer a public one
where only men foregathered during the day, the inner
a private one reserved for domestic life. In origin this ar-
rangement is thought to have been Persian and to have
been introduced into Egypt during Abbasid times when
Persian influence was paramount and Cairo went in for
Persian fashions. But if the prototype of this house is
found in old Sassanian palaces it was a design eminently
suited to the social organization of the times with its
segregation of women. The women's part of the house was
devoid of windows in the exterior walls, thus screening
them from outside attention. Their windows opened on to
the interior courtyard and even then must be filled with
lattice woodwork or plaster or metal grills to ensure a
maximum of privacy. In the decoration of the house glazed
coloured tiles in bright designs were a favourite feature,
as they still are in Persia and Spain, for facing the fronts
of houses, garden seats and fountains and for paving court-
yards. The Moorish palace of Alhambra, one of the few
remaining worthy monuments of the Moslem era in Spain,
THE ARABS
but a very precious one, preserves In grandiose form some
of the elements of the domestic architecture of the Arabs :
the severe, unimpressive exterior, the lavishly ornate in-
teriors, open tiled courtyards enclosed by arcading car-
ried on slender columns, walls in exquisite stucco panelling,
timbered ceilings, carved, coloured and gilded, window
openings filled with stone slabs of pierced traceries.
Offshoots of Moslem architecture are found today in
such differing idiom as that of the National Spanish School
and that of the palaces of many ruling princes in India*
Regional influences have naturally brought about variation
in a school of architecture that has persisted for a thou-
sand years and well-nigh half encircled the globe. In
India the glorious Taj Mahal has closer affinities with Per-
sia than with Egypt and yet is different from both; in
Turkey the influences are largely Armenian and Byzan-
tine; in Morocco and Spain the two glorious square mina-
rets, the Giraldo Tower of Seville and the Qasbah of
Rabat, are obviously close kindred, as are cusped and
horseshoe arches. Thus comes about the fivefold Saracenic
building forms Syro-Egyptian, Hispano-Moresque, Per-
sian, Ottoman and Lido-Saracenic.
As regards the minor arts of the Arab period, these,
in a large measure, were linked up with fine architecture,
so that the early indifference of the first Arabs was a phase
that quickly passed. Within a generation of the conquests
a kingly court of Damascus, as we have seen, had risen
to take the place of the simple dwellings of the Medina
caliphs; a century more, and the palaces of Baghdad had
as greatly excelled the courts of Damascus. Thence an
affluent leisured class of Arabs grew up with a taste for
the ancient refinements of their un-Arabian surroundings.
A 'court art' was already in being before the Dasmascus
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
caliphate decayed, and luxurious banqueting vessels and
rich textile furnishings had come to be regarded with a
friendly and tolerant eye.
But it was the removal of the seat of government from
Arab Damascus to Persian Baghdad, in the second century
after the Prophet, that marked the establishment of a real
tradition. Moslems henceforth adopted the luxury of the
Sassanian inheritance and delighted in exquisitely wrought
gold and silver plates, vessels of bronze and brass and
copper inlaid with precious metals, painted pottery, sump-
tuous silks and brocades, carved and painted ivories, in-
scribed manuscripts with water-colour miniatures and the
like. The Arabs had embarked upon a new and great ad-
venture, which the puritans among them must have re-
garded a little dubiously, for they were shaping a course
close hauled to the winds of early orthodoxy. The inspira-
tion for that adventure came from the Persians, for the
Persians were a nation of artists as the Arabs had been a
nation of warriors*
Carpet weaving, a cottage handicraft among the Per-
sians, was to attain world eminence. Beautiful examples
of the art came in time to be made for the great mosques.
There, their colours mellowed with age, and their smooth
sensuous quality was enhanced by the naked feet of multi-
tudinous worshippers. In the diwans of the well-to-do the
walls were hung with carpets of shimmering silk, infinitely
various in colour and design, though carpets of wool
served the commonest ends as floor coverings; there were
tiny prayer rugs, too, that were drawn out of their closets
and unrolled five times a day, these more chaste and sober,
as suited their sacred purpose.
Among the minor arts that Europe came earliest to ad-
mire, perhaps, was the metalwork of the Moslems. Lur-
[157]
THE ARABS
istan, with its mysterious bronzes, must have enjoyed
ancient fame, the Mosul school, too, shaped by Armenian
and Persian influences, had flourished from very early
times. It continued to prosper under the Arabs until the
Mongolian invasion scattered its craftsmen westwards
and led to the promotion of a school at Damascus and an
Egyptian revival at Cairo. The most characteristic product
of these schools was an inlay work of gold and silver in
brass or bronze, a process which Europe learned late from
Damascus and chose to remember as 'damascening.' Do-
mestic utensils of the house of the Arab period, such as
vases, candlesticks, writing boxes, were commonly made in
this work. The common metal had first to be cast to the
shape ; it was then incised with delicate traceries of floral
designs, geometrical arabesques, possibly a familiar coup-
let in ornate Arabic lettering, and these were filled in with
black mastic and a thread of the precious metal. Metal
enamelling with colours, however, such as the cloisonne
work of the Chinese, was not a Moslem handicraft. Schools
did spring up later both in India and Spain, but too late in
the day to be regarded as traditional Moslem art. Spain,
however, like Egypt, shared in all the other Moslem arts :
the swordmakers of Toledo were famous, and goldsmiths
and silversmiths enjoyed European renown in the Middle
Ages; even today the designs of earrings and suchlike
jewelry in gold filigree seen in the Spanish shopwindows
are strongly suggestive of oriental affinities.
If enamelling on metal found no favour in the Arab
period, enamelling on glass had been an old industry both
in Syria and Mesopotamia, and beautiful specimens con-
tinued to be made throughout Islamic times. 1 A notable
1 Glass mirrors, too, are thought to have found their way into Europe
from the Arab East
r - ^
MOSLEM MINOR ARTS: GLASS LAMP OF FOUR-
TEENTH CENTURY, IN THE MAUSOLEUM OF
TAKI-UD-DIN.
(By courtesy of the British Museum)
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
use was in the giant hanging lamps of the mosques. These
hung on massive chains from the ceiling, candelabralike,
a circle of coloured bowls, faintly illumined from within,
which gave to the sanctuary its dim religious light. Bottles
and beakers were other popular forms of enamelled glass-
ware. The Moslem nobility were accustomed to emblazon
their heraldic arms In coloured enamels on these. 'Their
use of such figures influenced the development of Western
heraldry which, during the crusades, evolved into a sys-
tematic science with a peculiar nomenclature of its own. In
this the technical term for blue, azure, is derived from the
Persian word denoting the blue stone called lapis lazuli.
There are other interesting links between European and
oriental heraldry, such as that curious figure the double-
headed eagle, which makes its first appearance in remote
antiquity on Hittite monuments. It became the badge of
the Seljuq Sultans early in the twelfth century, and in the
fourteenth was adopted as the blazon of the Holy Roman
Emperors.' 12 *
Painted earthenware and pottery were other crafts,
long famous in Egypt and Persia, that underwent their
own Islamic development. Centres sprang up from end
to end of the Arab conquests, devoted especially to tile-
making to satisfy the demands of religious and domestic
architecture. Beautiful faience appeared, too, an elegant
floral design making Damascus work celebrated, though
Persian work, in which draughtsmanship and colouring
reached their highest excellence, was still more famous.
The realistic representations of tulips, lilac and other
flowers on Persian pottery is said to have been the means
of their introduction into Europe. Rayy was the famous
ceramics centre in Persia, the home perhaps of that ex-
quisite vase handle, in the form of gold-winged ibex, fa-
THE ARABS
miliar to European students. Rayy made famous wares in
blue, green, red, brown and purple, until the Mongols
came in the thirteenth century and destroyed it.
One of the most widespread forms of Moslem pottery
was lustreware with its shimmering quality of gold lustre
that came from a process of painting a metal salt on a
glaze and firing in smoke. It is still made in southern Spain
and, although not to everybody's liking in these times of
severer taste, enjoys local favour, Blue-and-white pottery
and porcelain, such as Europe later drew from China, was
being imported from the same source by the Abbasid Arabs
in the ninth century; indeed, the characteristic cobalt
colour, known as muhammadan blue, is thought to have
been of Persian origin and to have been copied by the
Chinese orginally for the Arab market. Faience in perfect
taste, objets d'art such as lapis lazuli jars beautifully in-
scribed, silver- and gold-encrusted bronze vessels and the
like, found in museums today, give some indication of the
taste in domestic furnishings of the wealthy under the
Arabs.
The divine disapproval of the wearing of silk a taboo
still faithfully observed by the Wahhabis of Arabia was
beyond the endurance of the non-Arabian Arabs cradled in
the lands of the conquests. Indeed they became the great
silk mercers of the Middle Ages. Beautifully woven silk
fabrics, such as had been sought after by Roman emperors,
and rich brocades for the textile arts of Byzantines and
Persians were at a high pitch of excellence at the time of
the Arab invasion continued to be made in new Islamic
designs.
Europe, in later times, when oriental trade came to
flourish, became an enthusiastic purchaser of these fabrics,
at once technically and artistically perfect. Even chasubles
[160]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
and other church vestments and canopies for Christian al-
tars were commonly made of them. The tombs in the
larger mosques were draped, too, with these exquisitely
woven coverings of coloured silk and gold. Spanish silk
shawls with designs suggestive of Chinese influence en-
joyed a vogue which has not disappeared to this day, and
Persian designs were similarly much earlier affected. Not
only did silk in the first place come from China and the
caravan route between China and Persia existed from
early times but the Mongolian conquests of China and
of Persia in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries (towards
the close of the Arab period) established kindred hegem-
onies across Asia and so greatly facilitated trade and
cultural influences from end to end of the Continent.
Chinese motifs were woven into silk fabrics by the
Moslem weavers, side by side with their own, so that exotic
birds and beasts and figures enjoyed popularity at times
when orthodoxies were relaxed and perhaps at all times
with the non-Moslem elements of the population; for
tradition was too deeply rooted, human inclinations too
strong to prevent it, and despite religious discouragement
the human and animal figure never utterly disappeared
from Persian works of art. When we read of the gold
throne of an Egyptian Fatimid caliph, of carved trees set
with precious stones and hoards of other art treasures, it
clearly testifies to the mundane taste of the Shi'a elect as
well as to their wealth.
At a time when the courts of Baghdad, Cairo and Cor-
dova were resplendent with unparalleled collections of art
treasures, Europe, in her Dark Ages, was deficient in such
arts as these. Specimens which formed presents from Mos-
lem caliph to Christian monarch (tradition makes Harun
al Rashid send presents to Charlemagne), objets d'art
[161]
THE ARABS
brought back by travellers to the Orient and novelties that
appeared from trade contacts following the crusades were
soon to minister to Europe's growing inspiration. Oriental
canons came to be studied, oriental technique to be adopted.
Spain and Sicily, where Latins and Moslems lived side by
side, were natural contact points by which Moslem arts
became known, but it was the port of Venice, as the
flourishing port of crusade times and after and the home
of rich and enterprising merchant princes, that became the
gateway by which they were introduced.
The Italian aristocracy had already acquired a taste
for Moslem arts, and oriental craftsmen and oriental
guilds were soon installed in Venice. Italian workmen were
the first in Europe to learn from Persian carpetmakers
how to make pile carpets, learn inlaid metalwork and Mos-
lem ceramics from Persian and Egyptian craftsmen and
to master the art of weaving precious silks on a loom of
Moslem origin introduced from Sicily. From Venice these
arts and crafts passed into pre-Renaissance Europe.
As with architecture and the lesser arts, so with music,
the original Arabs could only have been familiar with
forms of a very rudimentary kind. Swarming out of
Arabia, they immediately came into contact with the more
developed music of Byzantines and Persians. A century
and a half later the translation of Greek musical theorists,
adapted to the taste of the leisured and artistic class that
was growing up in Abbasid times, created an Arab musical
tradition.
In the deserts we may suppose the Arabs, like the
Beduin of today, to have possessed a full repertory of
camel chants and not much else. These they sang lustily
as they went about special occasions, much as our sailors
of another day used their sea chanteys; the loading up
[162]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
of camels, the march, the trot, the halt over a water hole
each had its appropriate chant shouted in unison to
familiar words endlessly iterated. 2 Of instrumental music
they had none, unless it was a crude shepherd's pipe made
from the horn of an antelope, and near the settlements a
drum and perhaps an instrument of a rudimentary fiddle-
banjo kind, strung chiefly with animal gut. But simple vocal
music was their stand-by, and poetry, which they loved,
was doubtless often intoned to some simple chant.
To the original militant zealots of Islam music was
associated with impiety and levity and was therefore to be
frowned on, as it is to this day by the very orthodox among
peninsular Arabian communities, among whom drums are
suspect as instruments of Satan, and no decent girl with
a thought for her good name would dare to sing aloud. As
with other arts, so with music, a sharp line divided the
Arabs of Arabia from the Arabs of the conquests. Arab
music belongs to the latter, both in time and place.
The Umaiyyad Arabs in the early part of the eighth
century favoured a musical mode based on the Pythag-
orean scale, the scale at that time in use in Europe, where
it was, of course, an inheritance of the Greeks but was
here coloured by both Persian and Byzantine influences ;
and this continued in common use in Islam for five cen-
turies to come, till it was superseded by the quarter-tone
scale which is the one found throughout the East to this
day.
Arab music was essentially different from the music
to which our modern ears are accustomed. Melody, not
harmony, was its chief feature. It was rudimentary a
horizontal one-dimensional music incapable of the struc-
*I have set down in European musical notation, not a very satisfactory
medium, all those I heard in Arabia. See Arabia Felix. 96 *
[163]
THE ARABS
from this seed sprang our strolling minstrelsy of the
Middle Ages ; indeed our word 'troubadour' may well de-
rive from the Arabic word for minstrel. This class of artist
affecting painted faces, gaudy costume and long hair under
a cap with jingling bells, a tabor in one hand, a pipe in the
other, disseminated the practice of music through medieval
Europe. They gave us, too, our Morris dancers, a verbal
corruption of Moorish dancers.
Europe had also its intellectual contacts with Arab
music when wandering scholars went to Spain in the twelfth
century to acquire the new learning, but in this there was
small profit, for very little of the Arabic literature on
music, in contrast to that on philosophy and science, seems
to have been translated into Latin or Hebrew. The trouba-
dour was a better advertising medium than the theorist,
and he brought into Europe the lute, the guitar and a one-
stringed fiddle said to have been a favourite of the poet
Chaucer. Seville was the centre of the manufacture of such
instruments. Those most favoured by the Arabs were of
the string or percussion sort, such as lutes (of which the
mandolin was one), guitars, harps, psalteries and dulci-
mers; cymbals, castanets, drums and tambourines, the
last named sometimes square and 'unsalvationist' in shape.
Reed and metal wind instruments were also made and,
not improbably, the first harmoniums. The earlier Euro-
pean stringed instruments, such as zithers and harps, had
been tuned by ear, but the finger boards of the Arab in-
struments were mathematically marked by frets (Arabic
fard) and it is supposed that to the fretting of the
Arabian lute European music may have owed the major
mode. Mensural or measured music seems, however, to
have been the greatest contribution that the Arabs made
to the art.
[166]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE ARTS
The musical literature of the Arabs records some
famous names of both composers and theorists, but in
Spain, as in Baghdad, much of it is work of religious jurists
and devoted to the issue whether music is permissible ac-
cording to religion or not. The argument had already been
won by the 'antis' in the East in the thirteenth century,
after which time no great composer appeared. In Spain,
however, Arab music flourished for a century longer,
though its greatest exponent, Avempace, belonged to the
tenth century.
But in Islam music was, clearly, always under suspicion*
And thus, whereas in the West, Christianity was later to
inspire some of the immortal masterpieces of Handel,
Bach, Brahms and the rest, the religious system of the
Arabs so discouraged the musical art that their music
remains, by European standards, a crude thing indeed.
Certainly such encouragement as it enjoyed brought no
comparable development, and this may well have been be-
cause music was never permitted in the mosques to become
a medium of divine worship.
[167]
CHAPTER VII
Arab Civilization: The Sciences
Civilizations, like individuals, spring from two parents,
and in all civilizations we can trace, the heritage from the
Civilized Mother has been more important than that from
the barbarian who violated her. 2 ** ARNOLD TOYNBEE.
a
"UR MIDDLE AGES rang with the fame of the Arab
sciences, an interesting thought when we remember that
but a century or two earlier the Arabs had not yet emerged
from an agelong desert obscurantism. The Arab sciences
were, of course, a flower of the Arab world outside Arabia.
They owed neither seed nor soil to the Arabian peninsula.
Religion, language, social system all these elements of
Moslem civilization were of peninsular origin ; not, how-
ever, the arts and sciences. Still, it was in the Arabic tongue
that the scientists and the philosophers of the age wrote,
irrespective of their nationality. Arabic was, as it were, a
torch, no sooner lighted in a corner of the eastern caliphate
than beacons flared across the new Islamic world, whose
radiance Christian Europe called Arab.
The evolution from the conquering Arab raider to
imperial ruler, the change from penury to affluence, from
tents of hair to palaces of marble, was the miracle of little
more than a hundred years. The revolution that the Arabs
stood for stirred the world to its depths. Racial and reli-
[168]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
gious loyalties were soon in the melting pot. The world
became convulsed with intellectual unrest, ancient philoso-
phies and sciences were haled forth and rejuvenated, and
out of it all grew the civilization which the Middle Ages
knew and bequeathed as Arab civilization.
The seed of the new learning was the legacy of
Hellenism, the soil was first and foremost ancient Persia,
but the stimulus that quickened life and induced the first
vigorous growth came from the religion of the Arabs.
They burst in upon societies intellectually more advanced
than themselves and possessing developed religious sys-
tems that had come under the influence of Greek philo-
sophic thought ; they soon had to look to their laurels. In
the early days of the conquests the Arabs could listen to
that strong inner voice that assured them possession of a
God-revealed and utterly true religion, based on a book
that was not man made but a revelation of the eternal veri-
ties. Erelong they heard many voices, the most insistent,
perhaps, that of foreign learning. They had come armed
with a religion at once authoritative and satisfying, one
which, moreover, bore all the recent marks of divine bless-
ing. Worldly wisdom must have seemed to the religious
zealot either heretical or unnecessary. When philosophical
speculation first came to dawn on their intelligences the
narrowly orthodox doubtless felt antagonism for it as so
much dubious foreign wisdom. For them, as yet, Allah's
revelations, through Muhammad, were enough. Time was
to shatter their sufficiency. As the first century wore on and
they acquired a wider knowledge of the universe, as they
came into contact with other systems, religious and pagan,
and with men who continued to live under them, men who
intellectually were their superiors or, at least, admittedly
not less rational than themselves, and yet could not accept
[169]
THE ARABS
the Islamic faith despite the inducements of escape from
taxation and social disabilities, the conviction that Islam
embraced all knowledge worth knowing met with a serious
challenge.
Now these rapidly changing Arabs of the outside Arab
world were, for their times, not religious bigots; there
was room outside the circle of narrow orthodoxy, espe-
cially in a world as yet predominantly non-Moslem, for
men resolved to pursue knowledge wherever found. Was
there not warranty, indeed, in abundance in the Qur'an
itself and in the Traditions, which besought men to search
for knowledge? Why should there be apprehension lest
'foreign science 7 should upset divine truth how could it?
Rather the tokens and wonders of creation would be all
the more manifest, the Omnipotent proclaimed, the faith
vindicated. It is due to the enlightenment of some of the
early Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, notably Mansur and
Ma'mun, that official Islam, cast off from the moorings of
narrow and intolerant orthodoxies, was swung into the
wide stream of classical learning.
Religious arguments between the rival imams of Islam
and the leaders of other faiths doubtless early took place
around the familiar issues, of the nature of God and of
the universe.
. . . and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate*
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand" ring mazes lost?-
Intellectually the classicists must have been at an ad-
vantage, and the Moslem doctors could only hope to con-
found or win them by demonstrating the rational basis of
Islam in the terms of the ancient wisdom. This, it is
^ilton, Paradise Lost, ii.
[170]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
posed, was at the root of the new and eager study of Greek
philosophy.
The intermediary between the ancient masters and the
Moslem pupils was at the outset the Nestorian Church.
It was this Christian sect, exiled in Persia, that first trans-
lated Aristotle into Arabic, and once translations had be-
gun they did not cease for a century and a half, during
which time nearly all the Greek literature in the natural
sciences passed into the thought of scholars professing
Islam. Hellenistic traditions had naturally survived in
parts of the lands wrenched from the Byzantines, notably
in Egypt, but the Greek spirit, curiously enough, had best
been kept alive in Persia. There, in tolerant Sassanian
times, the 'heretical* Nestorian Church had for some cen-
turies found refuge. Old Hira, on the Euphrates, was the
seat of a Nestorian bishop.
But the real centre of Greek learning was Jundeshapur,
a city in southwest Persia. It had been so for a century
before the Arab conquest and remained so during the cen-
tury that followed. There a famous academy attracted
wandering scholars of the East a meeting ground for the
learning of Greece, Persia and India. Scarcely less famous
was its hospital which sent doctors successively to the
courts of Damascus and Baghdad. Christian medicine en-
joyed pre-eminent prestige in these centuries, and that
medicine was founded largely on Greek medical science,
that is to say, the works of Galen. Greek physicians, often
Monophysite priests, when taken prisoner in the old
Greco-Byzantine wars, had been well received in Persian
court circles and their skill and knowledge put to use, so
now, under the Baghdad caliphs the translation of Galen
into Arabic early came to be desired and accomplished.
But it was not in Jundeshapur, the centre of Hellenistic
[171]
THE ARABS
thought, not even in Baghdad, the new city of the caliphs,
that Moslem scholarship first blazed forth. The great
figures of the new learning sprang up in northeast Persia
and beyond, in an area that embraced the provinces of
Khorasan and Trans-Oxiana, familiar to us as Bactria and
Turkestan territory which today is in a very backward
state. Here, not far from the borderlands of India, a land
already at this time with a considerable scholastic tradi-
tion, the old Persian spirit lived on. But the new learning
was not long to be confined there. The common Arabic
tongue and the brotherhood of Islam rapidly diffused it
across the Islamic world. Political disintegration Spain
and Egypt soon achieved independence was no impedi-
ment to its spread from east to west, and from Spain the
Arab sciences passed into Europe. It is this role of inter-
mediary played by Spain that makes her contribution loom
large in European eyes, but her greatest figures, most
notable in medicine and philosophy, did not appear till the
third century of Moslem occupation, so that in some ways
the Spanish period was but a reflection of the earlier glory
of the Moslem East.
To resume. The first century of the Arab period was
not a time of great learning. It was a period of racio-
political supremacy. The Arabs were too busy with their
world conquest and their internal dynastic upheavals to
concern themselves deeply with books. Doubtless the dawn
of a coming glory was looming; indeed some Umaiyyad
caliphs are thought to have had a taste for philosophical
subjects, but the fact remains that we have no books in
Arabic at all, except poetical diwans, from these Umaiyyad
times. Such secular learning as existed in the caliphate
would appear to have been an inheritance of the lettered
classes among Christian, Sabian, Jewish and Persian com-
[172]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
munities and the Persianized-Arab aristocracy of Iraq.
The rise of the Abbasids, the change of the seat of
government from Damascus to Baghdad and the accession
to office and influence of those who cherished learning
brought about the new era of scholastic splendour in the
East. Philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, medical
scientists, scholars of world reputation in the science of the
Greeks, passed in a continuous procession during the
ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries across the stage of the
eastern caliphate, lending it a glamour which is the pride
of the Arabs to this day, and if few of its principal figures
were men of wholly Arab blood 2 it is fair to remember
that the Arabs formed but a small minority In their huge
empire.
Before the coming of the Arabs scholars of Jundeshapur
had known their Aristotle and their Galen as well as
*A list by no means exhaustive of some of the great names in Arab
civilization with their respective origins is givn by Baron Carra de
Vaux 15 * as follows
al Khwarizmi was a native of Khiva.
al Farghani of Trans-Oxiana.
Abu'l Wafa)
al Battani [ were of Persian origin.
al Biruni )
al Kindi was of pure Arab stock.
Farabi was a Turk by origin.
Avicenna (Ibn Sina) hailed from near Balkh.
al Ghazah ? came from Tug j n the east of p ers j a .
Nasir al Dm)
Omar Khayyam was a Persian.
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) \
Alpetragius (Al Bitruji) | were Arabs of Spain.
Arzachel (Al Zarkali) )
Hunain bin Ishaq\
Ishaq bin Hunain > the translators were Christians.
Qusta bin Luqa )
Thabit bin Qurra? .
al Battani )
Masha'allah was a Jew.
[173]
Non-Moslems
THE ARABS
miscellaneous Indian masters, these having been long ago
translated into Syriac, the language of the Nestorian
Church, and to some extent into Pahlevi, the contemporary
language of Persia. The earliest translations of the Greek
learning under the encouragement of the caliph-founder
of Baghdad were thus made into Arabic from Syriac. With
the extension of the fields of knowledge under succeeding
caliphs translations at Jundeshapur came to be made, how-
ever, direct from the Greek, the movement reaching its
greatest activity half a century or so later.
The Caliph Ma'mun, under whom this took place, held
a view the first caliph ever to have done so that the
Qur'an had been created in time, in opposition to the
orthodox tenet that it was eternal before all worlds, co-
existent with God, so that he took a long step forward
towards giving a caliphial blessing, as it were, to the
validity of reason in matters of faith. A school of liberal
theologians had already sprung up in Iraq, antagonistic to
those bigots who condemned the new learning as being in-
consistent with the Qur'an and the Traditions, and who
preferred to occupy themselves with such issues as whether
horseflesh did or did not come under the religious taboo.
Two movements were thus active. On the one hand the
intellectuals were devoting themselves to the Greek
sciences, which indeed were becoming their overmastering
passion ; truth must be pursued for its own sake and tra-
ditional beliefs modified where they were not reconcilable
with scientific fact ; on the other hand the religious leaders
of the many bemoaned the heresy or even atheism to which
the love of pagan wisdom must lead. It thus came about
that under the enlightened aegis of the early Baghdad
caliphs an unfettered spirit of inquiry existed side by side
with narrow dogmatism.
[174]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
A great library in Baghdad called the House of Wis-
dom was founded by the Caliph Ma'mun, an example to
be followed a century and a half later by a Fatimid caliph
of Cairo. The grandees of the court vied with each other
in collecting books, and every mosque of the times was en-
couraged to do the same. A school of translation was es-
tablished in Baghdad at the same time, Hunain ibn Ishaq,
at once a great Christian physician and the most brilliant
and prolific of the translators, being appointed to direct it.
The remaining scholars and physicians of Jundeshapur
were transferred to the courts at Baghdad and Samarra
under the Caliph Mutawakkil, and hence its own famous
academy and hospital fell into decay.
The new library of Baghdad now enjoyed even more
munificent royal patronage ; staffs of translators, most of
them Christians and Sabians, who, as yet, alone had the
scholarship, were sent to Alexandria and other ancient
libraries of the Near and Middle East to hunt out old
Greek manuscripts and bring them back to Baghdad for
translation. Thus before the ninth century had run its
course not only Galen and Aristotle, but Plato's political
works, and the geographical, mathematical and astronomi-
cal works of Ptolemy, Euclid and Archimedes had all
been turned into Arabic. It is curious that classical poetry,
classical drama and Greek history should have been passed
by. But no translation of them was made, and so the
Arabs missed the more intimate touch with the inner spirit
of the Greeks. Whether this neglect is to be put down to
utilitarianism or not, the Arabs were doubtless by nature
realists and attached importance chiefly to knowledge that
served practical ends medicine, mechanics, geography,
arithmetic.
One of the greatest tools of civilization which we owe
[175]
THE ARABS
to the Arab period is the zero the foundation stone on
which all our arithmetic and mathematics rest and our
everyday numeral system. These are almost certainly an
Indian invention and are, in fact, called Indian by the
Arabs themselves. The other peoples of antiquity, includ-
ing even the Greeks, had no numbers ; they used the letters
of the alphabet in their order as numerals. Our earliest
trace of numbers is found in the Arabic works of the tenth
century. Numbers I to 5 are represented by a correspond-
ing number of strokes ligatured ; 6 to 9 by simple conven-
tional signs ; the nought by a dot or a circle, thus :
1234567890
1 r r I 1 V A S *
The introduction of the nought or zero the Arabic
word is sifr, from which our word 'cipher' may ultimately
derive simplified and revolutionized arithmetic. It had
previously been necessary to keep separate columns for
units, tens, hundreds, etc. the abacus system still met
with in shops in China. But the introduction of the nought
allowed figures to be kept in a row, in the series of units,
tens, hundreds, etc., familiar to us and so did away with
the need for a separate column for each. This discovery,
under the name 'algorism', found its way into Europe in
the twelfth century, after having been current among the
Arabs for two hundred and fifty years. Such terms as
'algorism', 'cipher' and 'algebra' bear witness to the part
played by the Arabs in our systems of calculation. 15 *
The algebraists under the Arabs made advances on
the knowledge of the Greeks. The works on the solution
of cubic equations by Omar Khayyam is held in high esti-
mation, and Omar was no mean astronomer, too, though
- [176]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
we prefer to think of him in his minor role of poet. Meas-
urements on plane and spherical surfaces were developed
quite early in the Arab period, the greatest geometer of
all being a Sabian named Thabit bin Qurra, who improved
on Euclid's Elements, who translated into Arabic seven of
the eight books on conic sections of Apollonius and wrote
the earliest known work on the sundial. Trigonometry
owes the discovery of the secant to Abu'l Wafa, though it
is sometimes attributed to Copernicus; trigonometrical
ratios, as we use them today, were the remarkable dis-
covery of the unbeliever, al Battani, while logarithms
came within an ace of discovery by al Farabi in his work
on musical intervals. Infinite quantities were dealt with by
the great Avicenna among others; measurements were
made of equilibrium and specific gravity, al Kindi already
experimenting in the ninth century with the object of dis-
covering the laws governing a falling body.
In mechanics astronomical instruments were of major
importance. New forms of astrolabes, improvements on
Ptolemy's, were invented both in the East and the West.
For land purposes they were generally designed for a par-
ticular latitude and served to find the position of Mecca
and so the direction of prayer ; while at sea their use for
navigational purposes continued down to the seventeenth
century. Spanish astronomers devoted attention to the
construction of armillary or celestial spheres, making them
as big as possible to minimize error. In major engineering
the Abbasid times produced extensive canalization of
Tigris and Euphrates for irrigation purposes ; a tradition
is also cherished by the Arabs that one of the caliphs
planned to make the Suez Canal and was only prevented
by the danger it entailed to the holy places at the time of
the crusades.
[177]
THE ARABS
The Arabs were particularly well placed to make con-
tributions to geography. The pilgrimage to Mecca early
led to the compilation of books that set forth the journeys
to the holy cities from the uttermost ends of the Islamic
world and gave detailed descriptions and names of cities
and villages en route and the distances of the various
stages.
The early Arabs conceived of the world as disc shaped,
its interior a land mass of which Arabia was the centre ;
without was an encircling ocean having two deep intrud-
ing arms presumably the Indian Ocean and the Mediter-
ranean. They do not appear to have had any geography
in a scientific sense till the translation of Ptolemy, and this
led, among the scholars at any rate, to an acceptance of
Greek conceptions. By the end of the tenth century their
geographical knowledge had far outgrown that of con-
temporary Europe, and if their maps of the Mediter-
ranean represent it as a circular or elliptical shape, this
doubtless was a cartographical convention of the times, for
they knew better from Ptolemy's maps. 16 * Ptolemy's meth-
ods, which they used as their model, had been scientific.
He used parallels of latitude and parallels of longitude,
as in a Mercator's projection, the former based on the
equator, the latter measured from the westernmost me-
ridian then known, the Island of Ferrol. He plotted his
point of latitude and longitude from data obtained by the
rough methods of his day the logs of sea captains, the
diaries of army officers home from campaigns, distances
obtained by dead reckoning and other data such as the
duration of the hours of daylight and the times of the
rising and setting of heavenly bodies.
The Arab astronomers, al Farghani, al Battani and al
Biruni, were soon producing their own tables of latitudes
[178]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
and longitudes. But astronomers and geographers at first
worked independently. The land mass of the world had
been conceived of as divided by the equator into a habitable
northern part and an uninhabited southern part. The
habitable part was further divided into seven climes, a
series of parallel zones running east to west and lying one
beyond the other northwards, diminishing in extent as
they went. A literary geographical school sprang up in
the tenth century. One of its luminaries, al Mas'udi (he
was a widely travelled author who had visited China but
possessed little astronomical knowledge) , held the opinion
that all cities in one clime must necessarily be in the same
latitude. But Idrisi, who followed him, co-ordinated the
scientific with the descriptive aspects of the science. The
Norman king of Sicily commissioned this brilliant geogra-
pher to write a geographical description of the world
an interesting light on how Europe regarded Moslem
scholarship. Voluminous writings of travellers (one of the
most important was Ibn Batuta, a Moor who had visited
Ceylon and Africa as well as every part of the Islamic
world) were inspired perhaps by the earlier encyclopaedic
works of Abu'l Fida and Yaqut, the latter a particularly
notable contribution to knowledge.
The Arabs had a great sea tradition, too, particularly in
the East, which is reflected in the popularity of sea litera-
ture at the time, and of which we get a glimmering in the
voyages of Sindbad the Sailor in the Arabian Nights. It
was indeed an Arab mariner named Ibn Majid who is be-
lieved to have piloted the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da
Gama, on his historical voyage of discovery around the
Cape of Good Hope (A.D. 1492), thus opening the ocean
way to India, and a legend makes Ibn Majid the actual
inventor of the mariner's compass. That the compass was
[179]
THE ARABS
in some way an Arab contribution is logically within the
tradition, but the compass was already known in France
and Italy, and Majid's own ascription of it to King David,
the great ironmaster of antiquity in which role I have
many times heard of him from Arab Beduin suggests a
much earlier knowledge of the compass. The Chinese in-
deed claim to have used it continuously from the second
century, and this may suggest that Arab mariners intro-
duced it to the West from their Far Eastern voyages.
It was Arabian astronomy, however, rather than Ara-
bian geography, that exercised an enduring Influence on
European thought. Although we owed much of our earliest
specialized knowledge of Eastern countries to the geogra-
phers their half knowledge and rudimentary map making
came in time to be superseded and the debt due to their
pioneer contributions forgotten or underestimated. To the
Moslem astronomer is due the credit of accepting the
roundness of the earth, however unenthusiastically, at a
time when it was as yet too big a pill for Europe to swal-
low. Accompanying the conception of the earth as a sphere
was a curious theory that somewhere in the centre of one
hemisphere was a summit, c the cupola of Arin,' and Chris-
topher Columbus three hundred years later held the quest-
provoking belief that in the opposite hemisphere, the An-
tipodes of Arin, must be another and still more elevated
summit, giving to the earth a pear-shaped form. 'It is
highly probable,' says Kramers, 16 * 'that it induced Dante,
whose indebtedness to Muhammadan traditions has been
established in many respects, to localize his Purgatorio,
in the shape of a mountain, in the western hemisphere, by
combining with it, in an ingenious way, the ancient Chris-
tian belief that the terrestrial Paradise was situated in the
extreme east of the world, behind the sea.'
[180]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
As did the Hebrew scriptures, the original Arabs had
doubtless conceived of our earth being the hub of the
universe. Within two centuries of the conquests Moslem
scholars had accepted the Ptolemaic conception. In the
tenth century they speak of the planets of which they
regarded the sun and the moon as two each with its hol-
low concentric sky; the outer sky of all contained the fixed
stars and turned round and round like a water wheel on
two pivots, or celestial poles, thus keeping the inner skies
of the planets revolving in their several motions. Two
centuries earlier a Hindu astronomer brought to the new
court at Baghdad an Indian work on astronomy which was
soon translated, and the astronomical tables of the Caliph
Ma'mun, who set up an observatory at Baghdad fifty years
later, were prepared according to the Indian method. At
this observatory the great Thabit took altitudes of the
sun to discover the length of the solar year, and his fellow
Sabian, Battani the astronomer most admired during our
Renaissance period calculated the first appearance of the
moon, the inclination of the ecliptic, the length of the
tropic and sidereal year, and parallaxes.
The passion for astronomy spread to Spain, where, in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it flourished exceed-
ingly, the Spanish school calculating its longitudes in rela-
tion to the meridian of Toledo. Al Bitruji ( Alpetragius) in
the twelfth century was developing his own original views
on planetary movements. He boldly criticized the com-
plexity of Ptolemy's theories and looked for a simpler ex-
planation of the entire stellar system. Al Biruni had
already in the eleventh century had glimmerings of what
Aristarchus of Samos and Seleucus of Babylon had in-
tuitively felt more than a thousand years before, a belief
sometimes ascribed to Indian savants, namely that the
[181]
THE ARABS
phenomena of the skies may be explained by the rotation
of the earth on its own axis and its progress on an orbital
path around the sun. 15 * But that thesis and its mathematics
had to await the Renaissance and the Pole, Copernicus.
Arab civilization is scarcely less distinguished in the do-
main of medicine than in mathematics. Arab medicine was
rooted in Greek medicine, and the original centre of medi-
cal learning was, as we saw, Jundeshapur in southwest
Persia. The famous hospital there produced seven genera-
tions of a celebrated family of physicians known to the
East as Bakhtishu, i.e. Fortuna Jesu, With its decay medi-
cine ceased to be a Christian and Sabian preserve, Moslem
doctors were trained in the new hospital at Baghdad, and
in the course of a century or so thirty similar hospitals
sprang up in the principal cities throughout the Moslem
world.
Hunain, the physician and translator, had written
several original medical works in Arabic, including ten
treatises on the eyes, and Thabit, also physician-translator,
is credited with a big work on hygiene. But before this
first century of Arab science had passed a Persian Moslem
was born near Teheran who became one of the greatest
figures of the era. This was Rhazes, a pupil of Hunain, who
surpassed his master in the prolixity of his works. One on
smallpox and measles gave the first clear account of these
diseases; it found its way into many languages, including
English, and was still being published in East and West
a thousand years later. Rhazes's masterpiece, called The
Comprehensive Book, brought together the knowledge and
treatment of Greeks, Arabs, Persians and Indians, re-
spectively, for every known disease, together with the
author's summing up, a stupendous piece of scholarship
which was later to influence European practice.
[182]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
There were many other medical scientists, the most
notable of them Avicenna, whose Canon of Medicine was
at once an encyclopaedia and pharmacopoeia. It was
translated into Latin, and it is still used in the East. At
about this time a medical school was springing up in
Spain which was to achieve eminence in surgery. The
Materia Medica of Dioscorides had, at the outset, been
translated for the Cordova court by a Jewish doctor, and
Abulcasis, another famous court physician, soon after-
wards produced his treatise on surgery, illustrated with
drawings of instruments. This work had a wide vogue ; it
was translated into Spanish, Latin and Hebrew, and some
experts claim that it laid the foundations of European
surgery.
Optics reached their highest development under Al-
hazen, who, at the beginning of the tenth century, was In
the service of the Fatimid caliph of north Africa. Alhazen
rejected the theory of Ptolemy and Euclid that the eye
sends out rays to the object beheld and asserted the reverse
process, a discovery that is at the bottom of photography.
He examined the refraction of rays through light and
water, estimated that the atmosphere around the earth
was ten miles high and came very near to discovering the
magnifying glass; his researches carried Arab optical
science far beyond the limits of Greek knowledge. All this
time the Arabs were becoming highly proficient in the prac-
tical treatment of eye diseases, and their methods of A.D.
1000 were being followed in Europe down to the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century.
The decline of the Eastern sciences coincides with the
revival of narrow religious- orthodoxies in Islam, which
dated from the early part of the twelfth century, and
the work of the great religious teacher, al Ghazali. If a
[183]
THE ARABS
pious caliph of Baghdad was to burn the works of
Avicenna, Spain was free to advance for a century longer.
Indeed at this very time she produced two of her great
figures, Avenzoar and Averroes. But by the fourteenth
century Arabic writings had so far declined that magic
and superstitious practices were appearing. Not that these
were ever entirely absent, even in the halcyon days of the
tenth to twelfth centuries, for both astrology and alchemy
were widely believed in. Quite competent astronomers ac-
cepted the influence of the heavenly bodies upon terrestrial
affairs, and despite the Traditions which forbade belief in
omens Mas'udi, among others, was a believer in them. The
popular mind associated astronomy with astrology, so
that astrolabes came to be suspected by the vulgar as par-
taking of the magical, whence at the end of the tenth
century, one pope, who was an enthusiastic astronomer,
was held to have 'dealings with the devil at Cordova.'
The case for alchemy was stronger. It was founded on
the theory that all metals are fundamentally the same a
basis not incompatible with the Aristotelian theory that
everything ultimately is composed of four elements : mois-
ture, dryness, heat and cold. Transmutation from one
metal to another was therefore held to be not impossible.
Gold was the purest, silver the next purest, and the desire
for them was, of course, in order of their preciousness.
Alchemy postulated a substance that was capable of turn-
ing a base metal into a precious one, and it was the hunt
after this elixir that occupied some of the best thought of
the age. Even such eminent scientists as Rhazes and al
Farabi were enthusiastic experimenters, though others,
notably al Biruni and Avicenna, were in a nonbelievers'
camp, holding by a theory that metals were fundamentally
different (elements?). An interesting feature of Rhazes'
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
book on alchemy is his division of substances into vege-
table, animal and mineral, a verbal usage that has passed
into our modern speech, while the so-called father of Arab
alchemy, Jabir, is supposed nowadays to have been a
secret company that was at work not earlier than the
tenth century.
'The legacy of the Islamic world in medicine and natural
science,' says Dr Max Meyerhof, 17 * 'is the legacy of
Greece, increased by many additions, mostly practical.
. . . But the additions of the Islamic physicians refer almost
solely to clinical and therapeutic experience. The theory
and thought of the Greeks were left untouched and treas-
ured up after careful systematization and classification. It
must be remembered that the Moslems were strictly pro-
hibited from dissecting either human bodies or living ani-
mals. Thus experiment was practically impossible in
medicine, so that none of Galen's anatomical and physio-
logical errors could be corrected. On the other hand, they
received some impetus from the experience of Persian,
Indian, and Central Asian scholars concerning particular
lines of treatment, operations, and the knowledge of drugs
and minerals. ... In other sciences some of the best Greek
works were unknown to the Moslems, as, for example, the
botany of Theophrastus. Their own share in this branch
is a considerable one, but, again, of purely practical im-
portance. The Moslem scholars, although acute observers,
were thinkers only in a restricted sense. It is the same in
zoology, mineralogy, and mechanics. The glory of Moslem
science is in the field of optics. Here the mathematical
ability of Alhazen and Kamal al Din outshone that of
Euclid and Ptolemy. Real and lasting advances stand to
their credit in this department of science.'
Original Arab contributions In the field of philosophic
THE ARABS
thought are often belittled by Western authorities, who
indeed have dubbed them negligible, in opposition to some
modern Arab authorities who think that during the golden
age of the caliphate a system of philosophy flourished
which was peculiarly Arab or Islamic and which pro-
foundly affected European thought and achievement. Pro-
fessor Guillaume, in his brilliant essay on Philosophy and
Theology* to which the present writer acknowledges a
deep obligation, holds that while the Arab addition to
Greek philosophy was not substantial, it seems unfair to
deny to the Arabs a 'peculiar synthesis of philosophic
thought' which gives Arab philosophy a definite meaning.
During our Middle Ages it was the world under Arab
domination that rediscovered Greek philosophy, devoted
itself to a rational interpretation of God, man and the
universe, and arrived at intellectual standpoints that
greatly influenced the teachings, not only of Islam, but
also of medieval Christianity. We have seen that the first
Arabs accepted the Qur'an much in the same way that
fundamentalists accept the Bible a literal acceptance
through faith. The impact of Greek philosophical ideas on
the increasingly enlightened generations following the con-
quests brought intellectual questionings. Soon a school of
Moslem thinkers arose, the Mu'tazilite or Secessionists,
who held 'that God could not predestinate man's actions
because He was a moral being who was bound to do what
was righteous' and who demanded that 'theology should
be subjected to investigation by the mind/ To this society
the Caliph Ma'mun himself belonged, and its activities in
pressing the translation and study of the ancient thinkers
were such that its influences are thought to have spread
across the Islamic world into Spain, to survive there after
its own suppression in the East as a heretical body.
[186]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
While the orthodox were suspicious of innovations of
foreign origin and was not philosophy 'wisdom mixed
with unbelief ? the Arab philosophers took the path of
intellectual approach. The earliest distinguished name
among them is that of al Kindi, whose theories of the soul
formed, with some modifications, the basis of later Arab
philosophical thought. His conception of the universe was
akin to that of Aristotle: 'The divine intelligence is the
cause of the world's existence: its activity is mediated
through the heavenly spheres to the terrestrial world. The
world-soul is intermediate between God and the world of
bodies. This world-soul created the heavenly spheres. The
human soul is an emanation from the world-soul. There
is thus a duality in man : inasmuch as the soul is tied to the
body it is influenced by the heavenly spheres, but in so far
as it is true to its spiritual origin it is free and independent.
Both freedom and immortality are only attainable in the
world of intelligence, so that if man would attain thereto
he must set himself to develop his intellectual powers by
acquiring a right knowledge of God and the universe!' 18 *
The philosopher, al Farabi, who followed al Kindi and
was also a commentator of Aristotle, argued 'the impos-
sibility of an infinite chain of causes and the postulate
of a first cause necessarily existent in and for itself.'
Al Farabi was an enthusiastic exponent of the theory that
the world had no beginning, a doctrine which was an
offence to Islam and Christianity.
The philosopher whom the West regarded as the great-
est exponent of Arab philosophy till Averroes arose in
Spain two centuries later was Avicenna. His lucid inter-
pretations of his predecessor's philosophy were indeed
translated later by the Christian archbishop of Toledo.
Avicenna, following Plotinus, laid down the principle
[187]
THE ARABS
*that from the one and indivisible only one being can origi-
nate. . . . Therefore it is not permissible to assert that
form and matter spring directly from God for that would
involve the assumption that there are two different modes
in the divine essence. Matter, indeed, is not to be thought
of as coming from God, because it is the very principle of
multiplicity and diversity. Again, argued Avicenna, we may
not suggest that a necessary being which has no final cause
is influenced by a purpose in the sense that he acts for the
sake of something other than himself. For if he did he
would be dominated in his actions by regard for a being in-
ferior to himself. It would then be necessary to distinguish
within the divine nature : (a) the good of the thing which
made it desirable; (b) the divine knowledge of that good;
and (c) the divine intention of acquiring or producing that
good. Therefore something intermediary between God
the "necessary being" and the world of multiplicity must
be postulated. The problem, therefore, was how to ac-
count for the fact of a complex universe and a simple
creator.' 18 *
The philosophical thought of the East passed naturally
across the Arabic speaking world to Spain, where, how-
ever, for the first three centuries religious orthodoxy re-
sisted Mu'tazalite doctrines. The great thinkers of Spain
do not belong to the centuries of the Arab rulers at Cor-
dova but to the later ones of political upheaval under
Berber rulers. These, though inclined to fanaticism and
narrow orthodoxies, seem to have connived at the specu-
lation of the philosophers so long as it was kept out of
the reach of the common herd.
The Christian Church in Spain, unlike the Nestorian
Church in Persia, was not in contact with Greek phil-
osophic thought, so that whereas in the East Greek
[188]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
philosophy had come to Islam through a Christian link,
in the West it was to come to Christianity through a Mos-
lem link. Three great Spanish thinkers arose, Ibn Mu-
sarra, Ibn al Arabi, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), whose
ideas were to exercise great influence in Europe during the
succeeding centuries, as did those of a Jewish school whose
principal figure was Avicebron (Ibn Gabirol). Many of
the Moslems had been mystics. The greatest Moslem mys-
tic, a man of wonderful erudition and deep piety, was al
Ghazali, called the St Thomas Aquinas of Islam. His
arguments in favour of the 'creatio ex nihilo', proofs that
God's knowledge comprises particulars and the dogma
of the resurrection of the dead commended themselves to
Christian scholars. Al Ghazali had passed through a stage
of scepticism to set himself the task of exploring the four
ways which claimed to lead to the truth, namely Scholas-
tic theology, belief in an infallible teacher, Aristotelian
philosophy and Sufism, i.e. the way of Persian mystics who
held that God could be mystically apprehended in ecstasy.
He emerged a mystic.
The philosopher who had the most pronounced in-
fluence on the West was Averroes of Cordova, though he
does not appear to have occupied a corresponding posi-
tion in Islam, for at one stage he was accused of apostasy
to Judaism and banished to Africa. By the orthodox,
Averroism was indeed generally equated with rationalism.
Averroes, however, did not argue that philosophy and re-
vealed religion were irreconcilable but held like St Thomas
Aquinas that when they appeared to conflict the error lay
in the interpretation. For Averroes the interpretation of
the Qur'an by the ignorant was not possible. Better they
be left with their crude ideas while 'the philosopher in-
terpreted the sacred text in the light of reason.' Such
[189]
THE ARABS
ideas and others came from the East by way of Moslem
Spain to colour Christian outlook. 'The resemblances be-
tween Averroes and St Thomas Aquinas indeed are so
numerous it is only natural to conclude that Averroes has
bequeathed something more than a commentary on Aris-
totle to Christian scholarship.' 18 *
Thus European scholars hold that 'however small the
Arab contribution to pure philosophic thought may have
been their service to theology was of considerable extent.'
'We may be sure,' says Professor Guillaume, 'that those
who accuse Moslem scholars of lack of originality and of
intellectual decadence have never read Averroes or looked
into al Ghazali, but have accepted second-hand judgments.
The presence of doctrines of Islamic origin in the very
citadel of Western Christianity, the Summa of Aquinas,
is a sufficient refutation of the charge of lack of original-
ity and sterility.' 18 *
The influence of the Arabs on medieval civilization was
clearly very considerable, the term 'Arab' being used in
its broad cultural connotation; for Arab civilization, as
we have seen, was not the civilization of the Arabs as a
race, still less of Arabia as a country ; it was the civilization
that sprang up among the heterogeneous peoples of the
Arab-conquered world in the early centuries of Islam. Its
great figures, indeed, seem to have been mostly of Persian
blood, and not a few were outside the allegiance of the
Arab faith. Still, for all that, without the Arabs it probably
would never have taken place.
One very striking thing about these scholars was their
amazing versatility. Thus a philosopher of distinction like
al Farabi could be eminent in music and in mathematics.
Rhazes seemed equally at home in theology, in astronomy
and in the natural sciences, and al Biruni had the time and
[190]
ARAB CIVILIZATION: THE SCIENCES
talents to be physician and physicist, geographer and as-
tronomer, and still write learnedly about arithmetic. The
Arabs may 'not have had the same gift of scientific imagi-
nation, the same powerful genius as had the Greeks', 15 *
but they made themselves masters of the Greek heritage
and kept alive the higher intellectual life.
Europe, as yet backward, profited from intercourse
with this civilization particularly through Moslem Spain.
In the tenth century Cordova was the most civilized city
in Europe ; 19 * Seville, a hundred years later, was to rival,
but only Toledo was to excel her and in the eleventh
century become the first seat of learning in Moslem Spain.
Wandering scholars from Europe now came to acquire,
through the medium of Jewish interpreters, a taste for
Aristotle. Others, following in succeeding centuries, came
to study Arabic, the eminent among them, like Robertus
Augustus and Adelard of Bath, making translations of
their own. As the conflict between the Latin and Berber
kingdoms led to the gradual withdrawal of Moslem power
Spain became more congenial to European taste, and more
and more of those with a bent towards scholarship turned
to her.
Just as the Arabs had profited from the Greek trans-
lations in the eighth and ninth centuries, so in the twelfth
and succeeding centuries Europe profited by these Latin
translations from the Arabic. And so Greco-Arabic learn-
ing spread across Europe, and the first universities sprang
up in response to the demand for it Bologna, Padua,
Paris. The Christian West was awakening. She had al-
ready inherited a large part of the Moslem legacy when
the crusades brought her into closer contact with the
Greek Church of Eastern Christendom. She had become
fully aware of the legacy of the Greeks bequeathed
THE ARABS
through the Arabs, and as time passed she abandoned
Arabic to go straight to the Greek originals.
The Arabs had meanwhile forsaken their Greek idols,
had in turn become conquered peoples and so sank back
into obscurity. Their work was done. They had held aloft
the torch of Greek civilization and after four hundred
years passed it, still more brightly burning, to the Chris-
tian West. That heritage contained the seed of the Renais-
sance, and out of the Renaissance grew European civiliza-
tion and European ascendancy.
[192]
Part Three
THE DECLINE
CHAPTER VIII
Disintegration and Decline
EW PEOPLES have left their impress on the world as the
Arabs have left theirs. At this day in a vast sweep of
territory across north Africa eastwards into the heart of
Asia the religion, the dress, the habits, the very outlook of
the peoples, the Arabic tongue, the written character where
the tongue is not Arabic, are all living monuments to the
great medieval empire of the Arabs.
Yet, strange though it may seem, the Arabs were a peo-
ple without taste for discipline, without capacity for or-
ganization, lacking stability. The marvellous expansion
of the seventh and eighth centuries that carried their
sway over an area as vast as the Roman Empire was fol-
lowed immediately by a period of disintegration almost as
rapid. There was scarcely any marking time at the top of
the hill, scarcely any sustained imperial dominion. Political
unity crumbled from the moment the soldiers stopped
marching; the conquered territories split up, regional
dynasties followed one after another; and within three
centuries political ascendancy had virtually passed almost
[195]
THE ARABS
4
everywhere to men of non-Arab blood. Within another
century or two foreign invaders were thundering at the
inner gates, the crusaders from western Europe, heathen
Mongols from Hither Asia. The Arabs knew no peace.
As they had lived by the sword, so must they perish by it.
And thus for five centuries the sword was seldom sheathed.
Yet despite the clashings, latterly of three races of man-
kind, despite the political submergence of the Arabs them-
selves, their faith emerged from the contest a world
faith; their social culture, inextricably bound up with that
faith, had laid hold of the ultimate victors. If the Arabs
suffered political eclipse, yet they triumphed in the
Arabization of their masters.
The new Arab world that had come to exist at the end
of the expansionist wars was not predominantly Arab in
blood. For colonization and conquest are ultimately two
very different processes, and while the conquests were al-
most world wide in extent, as the world was then conceived,
Arab colonization was not. It well-nigh exhausted itself in
the Fertile Crescent, the lands half encircling Arabia's
northern confines Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia. Here
more than anywhere else the proportion of Arab invad-
ers to indigenes stood high and grew to be dominant.
Egypt and Persia, on the other hand, were conquered
rather than colonized, the Arab minority element ulti-
mately dominating the one, being submerged by the other.
In the outward extensions, north Africa and Spain to the
westwards, Trans-Oxiana to the eastwards, the Arabs were
still more thin spread, these outermost conquests having
been achieved indeed only with the aid of allies. Most
notably was this the case in Spain where Tariq's original
conquering army of seven thousand contained a mere hand-
ful of three hundred Arabs, 19 * and the backing-up force
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
of eighteen thousand commanded by an Arab the following
year was a composite one of Berbers, Arabs, Egyptians
and Syrians, doubtless again preponderantly north African
in personnel. Marriage with Spanish women rapidly multi-
plied the newcomers' stock, but it still must have repre-
sented but a tiny fraction of the entire population of Spain,
while its blood in the second generation was for the most
part half Spanish and grew more diluted with succeeding
generations; indeed the more local generations a Spanish
Moslem could boast of, the less Arab blood he was likely
to have in his veins.
Disintegration not unnaturally started in these remote
fringes. Spain was conquered in 711; it threw off the
Damascus yoke and asserted its own independence in 746,
after a brief thirty-five years allegiance. Tunis had re-
pudiated the contact a year before. Parts of Morocco fol-
lowed rapidly. It was a state of affairs arising not from
native discontent with local Arab rulers, however, for
these continued to maintain themselves for hundreds of
years, such was Moslem military prestige. The root cause
was the strong individualism, the overmastering ambition
of the local Arabs themselves to carve out independent
kingdoms and found personal fortunes. Indeed those very
qualities which had been the strength of the expansion
when distances from headquarters daily grew greater and
communications across a slow-moving world made de-
pendence upon central authority impossible qualities of
independence, of opportunism, of courageous initiative
were, when peace came, to be the undoing of imperial
unity. Arab world dominion had been brought about by
independent local action of brilliant individual leaders
rather than as the result of a clearly thought-out and co-
ordinated policy vigorously prosecuted by a general staff.
[197]
THE ARABS
Do not the traditions tell us that the invasion of Egypt was
made despite the opposition of a caliph of Medina, Spain
invaded despite a caliph of Damascus ?
When the expansionist phase ceased the Arab leaders in
the field did not change their spots. The farther removed
they were from the central government the less dependent
they were upon caliphs who often were jealous of them.
They were impatient of interference; they were oppor-
tunists still. If the first Arab coins minted at Damascus
omitted the caliph's name, those issued a year later in
Iraq bore the name of his provincial governor who struck
them. Among a people of individualists so prone to
self-assertion peace had the effect of diverting energies
into disruptive channels.
Disagreement between caliphs of Damascus and their
provincial governors in eastern Persia, Khorasan and
Trans-Oxiana soon led to rifts, and although the native
populations steadily embraced the Islamic faith the au-
thority of Damascus dwindled so as to be almost non-
existent ten years before the Umaiyyad dynasty came to
an end. Representing the Arab caliphs as loose-living,
wicked and dissolute tyrants, the Persians were already
espousing another cause under the banner of a rival
claimant to the caliphate, a Persian-born descendant of
the Prophet's uncle, Abbas. Rebellion came to a head, the
Umaiyyad garrisons were expelled first from Persia then
from Iraq, the last caliph of Damascus was defeated in the
Battle of the Greater Zab, pursued to Egypt and there
with most of his family exterminated.
The Abbasid caliphs thus owed their throne to Persian
and Khorasan levies and must shape their rule accordingly.
As time went on Eastern influences continued increasingly
to dominate the affairs of the new caliphate. But later
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
Turkish mercenaries recruited from beyond the Oxus
as the caliph's bodyguard climbed to supreme power
at the expense of Persians and established a military
ascendancy within the state, the most powerful Turkish
amir of the day becoming the de facto ruler.
Away beyond Egypt, north Africa had never properly
been subjugated, had indeed already started crumbling
when the Spanish buttress fell away, so that at the time
of the removal eastwards of the caliphate capital from
Damascus to Baghdad, Qairawan alone of Barbary was
in allegiance. To assert Abbasid authority, Aghlab, an
Arab general, and native of eastern Persia, was sent to
north Africa. Aghlab found Qairawan a far cry from
Baghdad. He succeeded only too well, identified himself
with local disaffection or at least profited from it, so that
in A.D. 800 he ruled as an independent prince and founded
a north African dynasty.
Seventy years later Egypt was to travel the same path.
Ibn Tulun, a Turkish viceroy of the Baghdad caliph sent
to Fustat, became virtually independent while carrying out
his mission, and Egypt, ripe for independence, now
achieved it under him. Thus within a century and a half
after the Arab conquest of Spain practically the whole of
north Africa as well as Spain had become independent of
the great Arab caliphate of the East and had broken up
into many independent states.
But Qairawan was the scene of a new movement that
was destined to unite north Africa again under a single
ruler of Cairo and to give rise to a caliphate that in its
heyday was to rival the prestige of the contemporary
Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad. The Fatimids, as the rulers
of this African caliphate came to be called, owed their
name to a blood claim of descent from Fatima, the daugh-
[199]
THE ARABS
ter of the Prophet, wife of the martyr AH, and mother of
the saints, Husain and Hassan* They were of Shi'a sect ;
indeed the first Fatimid caliph claimed to be the Madhi
himself, though his Abbasid traducers represented him
as an impostor of Persian origin and with Jewish blood
in the female line. The genesis of the movement which
brought him to power is thought to have been a secret
society started by his grandfather some half-century be-
fore. This man, Abdullah ibn Maimun, is said to have
been a Persian oculist, a rationalist who had conceived a
violent hatred for orthodox Arabian Islamism. In origin
the movement stood for rational belief, requiring none
too high a code of personal behaviour judged by orthodox
standards, though it had a religious veneer in a cult
of Mahdism. The imminent expectation of a great teacher
was proclaimed; not, however, the occluded member of
the twelfth generation of the Prophet as in the Shi'a
cult of the East, though like him a Mahdi who would
sweep away false caliphs and usher in an age of peace
and justice. The movement had at its head Sa'id ibn
Husain, the grandson of the founder, when it attracted
to its ranks one Abu Abdullah, the Shi'ite, a native of
Basrah. Aghlabid rule was in decay at this time, and
Abu Abdullah put himself at the head <of the rebellion
to dethrone the last of the line. Sa'id was thereupon pro-
claimed caliph at Qairawan and assumed the name of
Ubaidallah the Mahdi. But caliph and popular leader
were soon quarrelling. The former proved, in the event, to
be a pious and orthodox Shi'a Moslem, and, whatever the
indulgences asssociated with the movement of his grand-
father, early made it clear that he was not going to stand
for 'free love, pig's flesh, and wine-bibbing.' The ladder by
which he had climbed to power could now be kicked aside,
[200]
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
Abu Abdullah was accused of casting doubts on the
Mahdi's credentials and so was put to death.
Fourth in this Fatimid line came a great caliph, Mu'izz,
scholar and statesman, to whom is ascribed a knowledge
of the Greek, Slav and Berber tongues. Mu'izz rose
about the middle of the tenth century at Qairawan to
make himself master of the Islamic world about him. His
iron hand extended westwards to subject the whole of
north Africa ; his ambitious eye looked still more eagerly
eastwards to Egypt, with her appanages of Palestine and
Syria. And thither Jauhar the Sicilian, his great slave
general, was dispatched at the head of an army. Fustat, the
capital, fell, and where the victors encamped on its out-
skirts rose the new Fatimid capital of Cairo. (Arabic =
Qahira. )
'And, 1 says Maqrizi, 'it is said that the origin of the
city's name was as follows: When the Cornmander-in-
Chief Jauhar desired to build the city, he summoned the
astrologers, and told them that he wished to construct a
town outside the city of Misr (i.e. Fustat) in order that
the army should abide in it, and he ordered them to choose
an auspicious moment (a happy rising) for laying the
foundations, with the object of insuring that the place
would never be lost to them and their successors : and the
astrologers chose a moment for laying, and a moment
for excavating the foundations; and they placed timber
poles round the circuit of the site, and between the poles
a rope was strung, and on it bells were fastened : and they
said to the workers, "when the bells ring, throw down
(into the already completed trenches) what is in your
hands of stones and mud" (i.e. mortar) . Then they stood
watching for the happy moment. Whereupon it happened
that a crow alighted upon one of the ropes whereon the
. [ 201 ]
THE ARABS
bells were hung, so that all the bells rang : and the workers
thought that the astrologers had rung them; therefore
they threw down (into the trenches) what was in their
hands of stone and mud (mortar) and began to build; and
the astrologers shouted "Al Qahir (the victorious) is
rising." Thus it happened that they missed what they had
intended, and it is said that it was the planet Mars, vic-
torious at dawn, that was in the ascendant when the foun-
dations were begun : and so they named the city Al Qahira
(Cairo) (the victorious) : and their insight is justified,
for the city has remained under (subject to) conquest till
this day.' 22 *
Two centuries later the crusaders were to come to find
the 'insight 5 still working. Meanwhile the fortunes of
the Fatimids of Egypt waxed and waned, the ties with
Syria and north Africa were not always and everywhere
maintained, the arts and sciences flourished, the spiritual
orthodoxies flagged. One mad and cruel caliph, the no-
torious Hakim, believed himself to be the incarnation of
the divine wisdom till a religious zealot assassinated him
on one of his lonely night rides, while the capital, Cairo,
was the home of a secret society that aimed at the under-
mining of religious orthodoxies. Initiates came to learn
towards the end of the nine degrees of initiation that
religious beliefs were fundamentally a means to secular
ends, to wit, the preservation of public order in a regi-
mented state ; they were a soporific for keeping the com-
mon herd in subjection. European modernism was thus
having a vogue in Islam before the coming of the cru-
saders, but whether or not as a result of their challenge to
Islam, dogmatic religion was soon to be enthroned again,
a reaction which not only damped the ardour of the
libertine but dried up the sources of scientific inspiration.
[202]
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
Before this set in, however, the Arabs were to suffer
politically in the general subjugation of western Asia by
a new power which had risen in the East the Seljuq
Turks. The eastern caliphate had for long been virtually
ruled by a Perso-Dailamite family, the Buwayhids, the
Arab caliph of Baghdad himself being little more than a
religious figurehead. Its influence waning, Baghdad had
lost hold of its eastern borderlands ; Trans-Oxiana threw
off the Arab yoke in the tenth century under the Persian
Samanids and was seized in turn by the rising Seljuqs.
These were a tribe of Turks who just before this time
(circa 960) had settled in the Khorasan-Trans-Oxiana
empire and embraced the Sunni branch of Islam. A cen-
tury more, and they were not only masters of the local
situation but had moved west to Baghdad, superseded
the power of the Buwayhids and secured, at the caliph's
hands, the title of sultans. Twenty years later these
Seljuqs were streaming on westwards in two main lines,
one in the north to invade the Byzantine Empire, annex
Armenia and Georgia and lay the foundations of the Asia
Minor kingdom of Rum, the other to sweep southwards
through the Arab lands of the Egyptian Fatimids, capture
Damascus and annex Syria and Palestine, sending Shi'a
refugees flying before them to the more congenial atmos-
phere of Egypt; for medieval times had a way of being
unkind to those who persisted in officially branded heresies,
and religious sectarianism and dynastic loyalty were closely
connected, as they still are in Arabia, The Fatimid general,
the famous Armenian, Badr al Jumali al Juyushi, was
forced to fall back on Egypt where he became, in turn, the
great wazir.
'^Weakness meanwhile grew in the Seljuq ranks, for their
vast conquests soon split up and fell to ambitious generals,
[203]
THE ARABS
so that in place of a solid empire, western Asia was dotted
over with small principalities under tributary chiefs. Fifty
years later Egypt was ready to advance again under
Juyushi's equally famous son, Afdal, who marched into
Palestine and reconquered Jerusalem from its Seljuq
ruler. In the north the Seljuq invaders of Asia Minor who
had originally driven the Christian Byzantines westwards
against the Aegean coasts had similarly grown weak by
disunity, but the cry for help from Constantinople had
been heard in Western Christendom, and towards the end
of the eleventh century the crusaders were girding on their
armour.
The Arabs of Syria and Palestine whose lands had
within half a century been thrice overrun by Seljuqs and
Fatimids now found these inter-Moslem wars dwarfed by
a menace far more terrifying. A strange and incalculable
invader was coming out of the West, an invader imbued
with a hatred of the Arab faith and resolved to expel it
from Jerusalem and the Holy Land and impose its own re-
ligious and political dominion.
During the two centuries that followed, the lands of
these Arabs were the main battlefield of that epoch-making
struggle between Christianity and Islam which the West
remembers as the crusades. The Arabs formed the bulk
of the inhabitants. They had done so for four and a half
centuries, since, indeed, their armies had wrested the
land by the sword from the Christian Byzantines. Chris-
tianity and Islam had since then learned to live side by
side, and whatever the rivalries between the two faiths,
a spirit of considerable tolerance had normally existed.
The traditional view that the original Arab conquerors
were religion-inspired zealots who came to trample on
other peoples' religion with a fiery mission analogous to
[204]
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
the crusaders' own is doubtless exaggerated. For in Pales-
tine, Syria and Egypt the native Christians offered no de-
termined resistance to these first rude Moslem Arabs
but welcomed them as deliverers from their Greek imperial
Christian rulers. It seems more probable that the coming
of the simple Arabs promised to bring religious toleration
for native Christian sectarianism which had been the ob-
ject of persecution by an orthodox state church, promised
a less burdensome taxation however invidious it might
be than the old imperial exactions, while the simple
Moslem slogan 'There is one God' involved no funda-
mental contradiction of Christianity. It was only in later
times when Islam became Intellectual and contentious,
eager to assert her supremacy, when proselytism sapped
the walls of the rival religion and carried dissension into
the family household, that religious antagonism sprang
up. All through these early centuries of Arab occupation
the Arabs not only permitted the practice of Christianity
within the Holy Land but had allowed Christians from
without to perform the pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre
of Jerusalem. This pilgrimage, which the pious believed
carried with it a remission of sins, brought Christians
not only from Syria, Egypt and Iraq, but from Europe,
in a regular annual invasion. Such special European inter-
ests had indeed grown up as induced the Caliph Harun al
Rashid according to some Western authorities to rec-
ognize the title, Protector of Jerusalem and Owner of the
Holy Sepulchre, assumed by his great Christian con-
temporary, Charlemagne.
It was an age when the rulers of Islam were passing
through an enlightened phase, were much more interested
in scientific speculation and Greek philosophy than in
hindering the pious exercises of 'The people of the book'
[205]
THE ARABS
coming from dark western Europe. In Europe, on the
other hand, the times were shaping for a religious revival.
The public conscience had been deeply outraged by the
act of the mad Caliph Hakim, who, in 1010, destroyed the
Holy Sepulchre; the violent unrest caused by Seljuq-
Fatimid wars had greatly interfered with peaceful pil-
grimage to the Holy Land ; the clarion call for help from
Eastern Christendom, following its loss of territory to
Moslems in Asia Minor, yet another provocation to West-
ern Christendom.
Europe was emerging from her Dark Ages and, if not
fully conscious of her destinies, had reached a stage of
concerted self-assertiveness. Religion was all powerful.
The authority of a single voice in Rome could suspend old
feudal antagonisms, old private wars, and send warriors,
recently hostile to one another, to wage war across the
seas in a common cause. Fighting instincts sharpened by
want, by famine, by overpopulation, by greed, could be
consecrated to the establishment of Christian rule in the
Holy Land ; the bellicose spirit of the younger son with-
out a heritage could be legitimately directed to the ambi-
tion of an estate or principality in the East at the expense
of the infidel. This cure for Europe's growing pains had
the blessing of religious authority. Western Christendom
was swept by a fever of religion and war. 'It was an age
which was dominated by the spirit of other-worldliness,
and accordingly ruled by the clerical power which repre-
sented the other world, 5 says Professor Barker, 25 * 'a new
path to Heaven, to tread which counted "f or full and com-
plete satisfaction" and gave forgiveness of sins . . . the
foreign policy of the Papacy, directing its faithful subjects
to the great war of Christianity against the Infidel. As a
new way of salvation, the Crusades connect themselves
[206]
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
with the history of the penitentiary system ; as the foreign
policy of the Church, they belong to that clerical purifica-
tion and direction of feudal society and its instincts, which
appears in the institution of "God's Truce'* and in chivalry
itself/
If commerce had not attained the significance it has in
modern statecraft, yet the growing maritime ambitions
of Venice and Genoa were, even at this early stage, not an
entirely negligible factor. The Mediterranean had virtu-
ally been an Arab sea all down the early Islamic centuries.
Its shores on three sides, south, west and for a large part
east, were still Moslem; on the northern shore the Italian
ports of Bari and Amalfi as well as the Mediterranean
Islands had for centuries been Moslem footholds too.
At first there had been no direct maritime commerce
between the Christian and Islamic worlds. It had been op-
posed on both sides, wherefore Tunis, the midway point
between Spain and Egypt, had risen and Alexandria de-
clined. Moslem shipping dominated the Mediterranean,
Moslem ships traded only between Moslem ports, visitors
to European shores at this time being Berber pirates on
plunder bent.
But in the tenth and eleventh centuries the disintegra-
tion of the Islamic world and the relative weakness of its
dismembered western parts was an encouragement for
southern Europe to be up and doing, and Christian ships
began to multiply upon the seas. Moslem and Christian
sailors served side by side in the same ships, not, let it be
supposed, because they had become animated by a new and
tolerant religious spirit, for both were no better than
pirates when occasion offered. But isolation had gone,
Venetian and Genoese shipping came to grow and share
the eastern trade, and by the twelfth century Ibn Jubair,
[207]
THE ARABS
the Arab traveller, can tell us that he travelled from Ceuta
to Alexandria in a Christian ship.
Europe was shaking off her sloth. It is true that in the
century before the crusades the heart of Asia Minor
had expelled the rule of Christian Constantinople. But at
the same time Christian rulers had been driving the Mos-
lems of Spain out of their capital of Toledo and farther
towards the south, driving the Moslems of Italy out of
their Italian footholds and expelling their rule from Sicily.
These wars against Moslems in Europe, prosecuted by
Iberians in Spain and Normans in Italy, had naturally
produced an exacerbation of religious feeling, and this,
with the events taking place in the East, nourished that
spirit of hatred for the infidel which animated the early
crusaders* In Europe the Saracens were on the run; in
the Holy Land they were fighting one another under
Seljuq and Fatimid; it seemed a propitious moment for
the eastern adventure. Thus in the year 1096 there as-
sembled at Constantinople a hundred and fifty thousand
armed pilgrims ready to embark upon the first militant
pilgrimage into the lands of the Arabs.
Marching southwards under the banner of the Cross,
they first encountered the banner of the Crescent in Asia
Minor. There the opposition of Seljuq Turks was brushed
aside and a trail of Christian garrisons left in many prin-
cipal cities, Edessa and Antioch, among others, to form
Latin principalities. Southwards, in the lands of the Arabs,
authority vested in Fatimid governors of Egypt. Before
the clash Afdal, the Egyptian wazir, had been prepared
to come to terms with the crusaders as a means of alliance
against the Seljuqs ; for the invaders, however, in the first
flush of their religious fervour and strength, there c6uld
be no trafficking with the infidel. By the year 1099 the
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
Fatimids had been expelled from the greater part of the
coasts of Syria and Palestine; in the following year, 1 100,
the Latin Kingdom came into being with Baldwin as
king of Jerusalem, and so the Arabs passed under the rule
of the Terenghi.' 1
The initial successes of the crusaders turned ambitious
eyes eastwards to Baghdad and southwards to Cairo, but
presumptuous dreamings were soon shattered by Seljuq
successes in Asia Minor, The crusaders profited from the
lack of co-ordination between the two Moslem fronts. The
rival Sunni and Shi'a divisions of Islam split Cairo and
Baghdad. Arabs had recently been at war, one with an-
other, for the mastery of the land that had now passed
to the stranger and the unbeliever. But this did not heal
their divisions, and the Latin Kingdom was thus able to
maintain itself for eighty years to come. Before a third of
that time had passed the kingdom reached its greatest
development, exceeding in size present-day Palestine, for
it extended northwards to Beyrout, eastwards over the
Jordan and southwards to the head of the Red Sea.
Divisions within the Seljuq ranks enabled the Prankish
principalities to maintain themselves the more easily, and
Christian princes made alliances with one Moslem leader
term 'Ferenghi' is a corruption of the word Trank.' It is commonly
used by Arabs today for any European, and so bears witness to the supreme
part played by the French, particularly the Norman French, in the crusades.
The first crusade was preached on French soil by a pope of French descent
and was largely French in personnel. All through the Holy Wars for two
hundred years to follow the French played a major part. The Latin King-
dom of Jerusalem was French in body, soul and mind. The language was
French, and when Latin rule was finally extinguished at the end of the
thirteenth century, French fleets still harried the coasts of Syria for a cen-
tury afterwards, and French influence in the Levant has continued down
through the centuries. Whatever the result of the crusades for Christendom,
the part France played in the wars, and her colonization of the Holy
Land, exalted her prestige in contemporary Europe. 25 *
[209]
THE ARABS
against another. Aleppo and Damascus were held by rivals,
and the alliance of Damascus with Latin Jerusalem was a
source of great strength to tliem both. Seljuq rulers,
known as atabegs or regents, were in many cases emanci-
pated slaves who had held high positions under the mili-
tary founders and in time had passed from regency to
rule. One of these, the famous Zangi, atabeg of Mosul,
rose in the year 1127 to extend his power westwards, ab-
sorb some of his weaker atabeg neighbours and carry war
into the Christian camps. He captured Edessa, marched on
Damascus and invaded the Latin Kingdom, reaching the
walls of Jerusalem and Acre. Oscillations of political
fortunes led to a union of the Christian Antioch and
Jerusalem, and with it the Greek Church's influence in-
creased at the expense of the Latin West ; for Christendom
had its two divisions no less than Islam, and Constanti-
nople held a rigid view of its historical rights and interests
to which the West must conform, however irksome it
found that conformity.
Dissensions within the ranks of both Christians and
Moslems brought greater toleration as between repre-
sentatives of the two religions. A generation of Franks
had grown up in the East whose zeal to fight the infidel
had given place to a desire to live on terms of amity
with him, who preferred to trade rather than to fight and
was not averse to adopting Arab dress and customs. On
the other hand renewed zeal for prosecuting the Holy War
came with fresh blood from the West, the new arrivals
not being always welcomed since they antagonized the
infidel. A contingent from the Low Countries and from
England that came by the long sea route and put in at Lis-
bon to succour coreligionists had captured the city from the
Moslems and so laid the foundations of the kingdom of
[210]
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
Portugal a close friendship between that country and
England surviving to this day. But the maintenance of
Christian political domination in the Holy Land remained
the supreme object of crusading policy.
To the north of the Latin Kingdom Zangi's mantle had
fallen upon his powerful son, Nur al Din. To the south
the Fatimid caliphate was in decline, and Egypt was torn
between rival ministers contending for power. One sought
the aid of the Seljuqs, another of the Latins, till Nur al
Din, sending an army into Egypt, carried the day for his
protege. In this force was a young Kurdish officer named
Saladin, a man of destiny, who was later to shake the
crusading movement to its foundations and send the
Latin kings of Jerusalem into a forty years exile. Sala-
din's uncle, the general of this force, soon after his arrival
himself became the caliph's wazir in Egypt, and when the
caliph died, Saladin, who had succeeded his uncle, seized
the power and made himself ruler. Thus the Shi'a caliphate
of the Egyptian Fatimids was brought to an end after
two hundred years, and prayers were once more said in
the Friday mosques for the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad.
But this allegiance was not a permanent one, for Saladin
was to entrench himself, become absolute and found a
dynasty.
He first turned north to make himself master of the
Syrian Moslems. Damascus and then Aleppo were con-
quered, and, by bringing about the fall of Nur al Din's
successor, he achieved his object. On all sides but the sea
the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was thus faced for the
first time by a united Moslem front. Its days were num-
bered. Saladin marched south from Aleppo at the head of
an army that was animated by a militant religious spirit
akin to that of the early crusaders themselves- He swept
[211]
THE ARABS
everything before him. Jerusalem capitulated after a
fortnight's siege, and so, in 1187, the kingdom fell, all
that remained of it being the seaports of Tyre, Tripoli
and Antioch.
The Christian West was roused again, and France,
England and Germany mustered crusaders to restore the
shattered position. The immediate objective, Acre, the
sea gateway to Jerusalem, was shortly attained, but forty
years passed in continuous struggle, as crusade after cru-
sade poured forth its zealots, before Jerusalem again
came under Christian rule. The first fine flush of religious
frenzy under the inspiration of the papacy had meanwhile
faded, and a new spirit of compromise and adjustment had
come to colour the counsels of the movement. To us the
most picturesque, if not the greatest, of the crusaders who
was to measure his strength against that of Saladin was
England's gallant King Richard, Coeur de Lion. His
journey out was memorable by his capture of the island of
Cyprus, and though he promptly sold it to become a Latin
kingdom, he had nonetheless founded a base of future
operations against the enemy in the Holy Land. But for
all Richard's exploits, the great prowess of Saladin could
not be humbled, and a truce was made, and the two great
and opposing protagonists spent a year in trying to find a
peaceful solution. The clerical domination of the crusades
had been passing. The movement had been growing secu-
lar. Richard could enter into friendly negotiations with
Saladin, who, like himself, was the chivalrous soldier
rather than the religious fanatic. He arrived to find the
mere vestiges of a coastal strip representing a Latin
kingdom; he would have been content with the addition of
Jerusalem linked by a corridor of the port of Acre.
For this he strove and to achieve it went to the lengths of
[212]
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
offering his own sister in marriage to the brother of
Saladin that they might jointly rule the kingdom, but
Saladin was unyielding.
Saladin's death threw Egypt into a turmoil, and this
gave a stimulus to fresh crusading activity. Cairo, as the
capital and centre of the enemy's power in the West,
was now the target. The fate of Jerusalem was seen to de-
pend not on overcoming the local Arab opposition but on
vanquishing the Egyptian masters of the land, and
throughout the remaining phase of the crusades, lasting
through the thirteenth century, this remained the crux
of Prankish strategy. Egypt became the crusaders' battle-
front if Jerusalem remained their goal.
Thus the crusade, which followed the death of Saladin,
became a sea crusade. The fleet was got ready for sea,
the crusaders were ready to embark when at the last
moment the plans were changed and a new and different
campaign was launched. The deciding factor might have
been the maritime interests of Italian ports, which are
said to have been enjoying advantages under trade agree-
ments with Cairo, but whether or not, the fleet sailed for
Christian Constantinople, its ostensible object being to
wrest the throne from the hands of a usurper. The up-
shot was that Constantinople, not Cairo, was stormed, and
so Constantinople, the original begetter, became the
victim of the crusades. France and Venice shared the spoils
between them. The new empire emerged. Baldwin of
Flanders became the first Latin emperor of Constanti-
nople, while the coasts and islands of the archipelago
passed to the Venetians. But the new empire proved a
source, not of strength but of weakness to the crusades,
for it drained the resources of the Holy Wars for years
to follow.
[213]
THE ARABS
The projected crusade against Egypt took fifteen more
years to gather strength. In the West there had been an
attempt at reviving the religious stimulus, and a cardinal
accompanied the expedition. The Prankish fleet appeared
before the port of Damietta, which fell to a siege, a land-
ing was made and the march on Cairo begun. Saladin's
successor offered terms the half of which would have
satisfied Richard of the Lion's Heart, namely the cession
of Jerusalem, the surrender of the Cross (Saladin had
captured it in 1187) and the liberation of prisoners. But
the crusaders wanted more. They wanted an indemnity,
and when this was not forthcoming war was resumed.
Nemesis now flung them back to the coasts, and they were
content to evacuate Damietta in exchange for the Cross.
When the crusaders came again they did so under
Frederick II of Sicily, a great man if a freethinking
monarch of a lately oriental state whose title to the throne
of Jerusalem was based on a wife's inheritance. Frederick
was no religious zealot. He came not to fight the infidel but
to treat with him, and the papal blessing had been with-
held* Frederick's was a calculating peace crusade, and it
succeeded. The caliph of Cairo in 1229 was ready to yield
what Richard had pleaded for in vain. The treaty between
Egypt and Sicily conceded the holy city, Nazareth, Bethle-
hem and a way to the sea at Acre, and thus Frederick en-
tered Jerusalem as its king without having to strike a
blow. Political bargaining had succeeded where arms had
failed for forty years, and the outcome was that Chris-
tian authority was enthroned for another fifteen years.
This success, however, proved to be the last gasp of the
Latin Kingdom.
Egypt was stirring again. The caliph's authority had
been undermined by the rivalries of Mamlukes. One of
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
these rose in course of time to absolute power and founded
a dynasty, figured in the final Moslem conquest of Syria
and reduced Latin authority to the point of extinction.
Baibars' first step on the road to dominance was as general
of the force which marched against Frederick, The latter's
authority was crumbling amid the internal dissensions
of the Latin nobles, so to Baibars the Latin Kingdom
looked an easy and tempting prey, and at Gaza in 1244
he routed the Christian forces so completely that Jerusa-
lem passed once more into Moslem hands. Cairo had
again become its master. The cry went up for help, and
western Europe again took measures to respond. Under
St Louis the crusaders attacked Damietta as they had
done before. History repeated itself by the launching of
another march on Cairo. But this time there was no
Egyptian attempt to buy off the invader. A force marched
out and utterly routed him. St Louis was able to escape
only by payment of a large ransom, and the stricken
army fell back to Acre. There, as in other coastal towns,
a Christian governor maintained a precarious existence
for another half -century, aided at first by Moslem allies
in Syria who had broken away after Saladin's death.
Still Egypt, aided by Baibars' military prowess, would
doubtless have swept it into the sea but for the appearance
of a new menace looming out of the East the arrival of
another great non-Moslem invader. The Mongols were
coming.
Just as the Arabs had swarmed out of the Arabian
peninsula across the known world in the seventh to
eighth centuries, so now in the thirteenth, armed bands
of Mongols from Central Asia swept east and west under
Chingis Khan to strike terror from Pekin to Persia. Next
they ascended into the plains of Iraq, and so it came
[215]
THE ARABS
about that while the Arabs of the West were delivering
themselves from the Prankish yoke those of Iraq were
swept by an avalanche of Mongols. The year 1258 saw
the conqueror Hulagu, Chingis Khan's grandson, swoop
down to the destruction of Baghdad and put the last
Abbasid caliph, Musta'sim, and his family to death. Two
years later they swarmed westwards through Syria and
Palestine, subjecting the Arabs to devasting destruction,
and only the prowess of Baibars at Gaza again prevented
their invasion of Egypt.
If to the Arabs these pagan Mongols (they were Sha-
manists) brought pandemonium, the crusaders saw in their
victories a new hope. The idea of converting these heathen
to Christianity fired their imagination. This would, so it
seemed, be a means of achieving for all time the crusaders'
goal and of driving Islam back into its Arabian home. The
existence of a sprinkling of Christians within the Mongol
ranks a backwash of Asiatic Nestorianism the fact
that Kilboga, the leader of the Mongol invasion of Syria,
was himself a Christian, lent fair ground for hope.
Eagerly the pope sent off missions to the Mongols of Rus-
sia and to those of Persia ; Christian missionaries pene-
trated Asia and established themselves as far east as
Pekin. The historic military contest between Christianity
and Islam now seemed to depend not a little on the con-
version to Christianity of the Mongol invaders.
But the prestige of the sword rather than the persua-
sions of preachers was decisive. Again the fundamental
distinction between conquest and colonization was to
influence the issue. The Mongols were too thin spread to
be colonizers. They were but a whirlwind army that swept
down and as quickly veered away. How thin spread they
were is clear to an observant visitor to the Middle East
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
who today will look in vain for survivals of the telltale
slit eye, the round head and stubby hair. If the Mongol
invaders of the Arab lands were Mongols in a racial sense,
they came and went.
The Latin hope of establishing a permanent kingdom
in the Holy Land, solidly supported by Mongol allies,
vanished with the vanishing Mongols. Egypt, galvanised
into activity under the energetic Baibars, marched in to
occupy the vacated spaces. Jaffa and Damascus fell easily,
and the Mongols retired to Asia Minor, where they were
able for a brief time to usurp the power of the Seljuq
Turks.
Syria and Egypt were now again united as they had been
in Saladin's time, but Baibars was no tolerant chivalrous
Saladin; he was as uncompromising a religious zealot as
the fieriest crusader, and he resolved to drive Christian
rule from the East, propitiously starting by taking An-
tioch, one of the remaining four Christian principalities.
A final and pathetic throw to restore shattered cru-
sading fortunes was made by the English Prince Edward,
who in 1272 landed at Acre and strove in vain to court
Mongol succour* His departure in despair was followed
by ten years of precarious peace between Franks and
Arabs, when Baibars' successor rose to expel the Chris-
tians from their final footholds of Tripoli and Acre. And
thus, in 1291, after nearly two hundred years of incessant
warfare the last vestige of Latin rule was extinguished.
Military success had increased Moslem prestige through-
out the East; the apathy of the West for Europe had, in
those two hundred years, grown to be secular, legal,
scholastic was reflected in the long-drawn-out, losing,
rear-guard action. By the end of the century the western
Mongols, the crusaders' last hope, had themselves em-
[217]
THE ARABS
braced Islam, the religion of the dominant power, and
Asia was thereby lost to Christianity.
The military offensive passed from the Cross to the
Crescent. The battlefields were thereafter to lie a full
month's march to the north of the Holy Land. The Isla-
mic standard-bearers were no longer Arabs but Ottoman
Turks a tribe of Turks that had established itself in
Asia Minor during the Mongol upheaval and had since
then inherited the sceptre of their Seljuq kindred, Turkish
aggression against imperial Christian neighbours to the
west had already provoked a landing of Cypriots and
Venetians who, anxious to protect their Aegean interests,
came to occupy Smyrna. But they were in the long run
powerless to stem the Ottoman tide which, in 1363, swept
across the Hellespont into Europe, overrunning the coun-
tries of the southern Balkans Thrace, Bulgaria, Mace-
donia, Serbia. A check came to the Ottomans, but only at
the hands of another Asiatic invader who fell upon their
rear. The Tartars, under Tamerlane, king of Trans-
Oxiana, invader of India and conqueror of southern Rus-
sia, reached out at the beginning of the fifteenth century
to strike at the Turkish province of Asia Minor at
Angora. This was, however, only another lightning Asi-
atic stroke that lacked continuance. The Ottoman ad-
venture in Europe was only momentarily affected by it,
and under the next ruler Ottoman pressure was resumed,
and Constantinople itself fell into the hands of the Turks
in 1453-
Strong in their European possessions, the Osmanlis 2
turned their faces back on Asia. There were forty inde-
pendent Turkish principalities in Anatolia at the beginning
of the fourteenth century, but by the end of the fifteenth
9 Osman was the eponymous ancestor.
[218]
DISINTEGRATION AND DECLINE
these had all been united, and this great and growing
Moslem power in the north was now a menace to the
Arabs of the Holy Land and, indeed, to Egyptian inde-
pendence. The Arab peoples of Syria and Palestine, tribu-
taries of the Mamlukes, had already been mustered to
defend themselves against the attacks of Tamerlane, had
marched on two occasions northwards against Turcoman
states. But there was to be no rest for them under the
threat of Ottoman aggression. In the early sixteenth cen-
tury the Sultan Selim, after defeating the Persians, turned
south to invade the Arab states. North of Aleppo the
Egyptian forces gathered to fight a decisive battle. It went
against them, the Ottoman way was open into Syria, and
early in the following year (1517) Selim marched tri-
umphantly into Cairo. The rule of the Cairo Mamlukes
thus came to an end ; the caliphate passed to European soil
and to men of Turkish blood, the Ottoman sultans of
Constantinople.
The Arabs had changed masters once again. Yet they
remained, in a sense, the victors, for they belonged to
the Moslem empire that within a quarter of a century
that followed extended its European conquests eastwards
through the Crimea, westwards through Hungary. Thus
was the religion of the Arabs carried to the gateway of
Vienna and maintained there for a hundred years.
The duel between Cross and Crescent reached the end
of a definite phase. It had been waged for four hundred
years. For the first two hundred the crusaders had waged
an offensive war, for the last two hundred Christendom
was on the defensive. When the crusades opened, Europe
(if Spain, which ultimately came to be wholly Christian,
is excluded) was under Christian rule, and western Asia
Minor too. During the first two crusading centuries more
[219]
THE ARABS
of Asia Minor as well as Palestine and Syria were in
part and at times added. By the end of the next two cen-
turies Christian rule had not only been expelled from the
lands of the Arabs and from the Asiatic continent, but
Islam had penetrated deep into eastern Europe and
established itself on the shores of the Danube. The Arabs,
during those four centuries, were in turn the subjects of
Seljuqs, Fatimids, Franks, Mongols, Mamlukes and Otto-
mans, but if the history of the period in the Near East is
conceived of as a duel between the civilization of East and
West, they emerged exalted, they had lived not in vain,
for in spirit they had made captives of their captors and
witnessed the extension and triumph of their Arab faith.
[220]
CHAPTER IX
The Arabs of Arabia
The Najdian spirit leads the oasis dwellers to reject all but
the simplest doctrine of Islam, and to regard expansions or
interpretations of this by any society, living under other con-
ditions than theirs, as offences, against the God they have
made in their own image. Such a spirit (not, of course, un-
known elsewhere in the histories of other creeds), remains
passive in stern self-righteousness till reminded with suf-
ficient force that man's responsibility to the One God of the
Universe cannot be acquitted by securing Him less than,
universal honour! 2 ** DAVTD HOGARTH
T
HJ
.HERE ARE two Arabs. There is the Arab within
Arabia ; there is the Arab without ; broadly speaking, the
one representative of a patriarchal culture, the other
the product of a medieval civilization; the one cut off in
a little-known backwater of the world, the other borne
upon a restless tide amid the interplay of world currents.
It is the second Arab, the historical Arab, whose for-
tunes we have been following down to the sixteenth cen-
tury. And now, at the risk of breaking the continuity of
his story, we must turn aside to consider, for a brief chap-
ter, how it has fared with the other Arab, his stay-at-
home brother, the Arab of Arabia. It is, moreover, nec-
essary to distinguish between the two cultures in order
[221]
THE ARABS
to understand the respective parts 'the Arabs' played, and
did not play, in the Great War, their varying outlook and
the several roads they are now travelling. For the single
term 'Arab' on Western lips is responsible for much mis-
understanding and confusion of thought. When, for in-
stance, our newspapers talk of the political aspirations of
'the Arabs' they are almost invariably referring not to the
Arabs of Arabia, but to those outside, to wit, the Arabs of
Syria, of Iraq or of Palestine. The danger of equating
Arabs and Arabia is seen in the journalistic tag used in
connection with the late T. E. Lawrence, 'The Uncrowned
King of Arabia,' for, with the exception of the western
coastal fringe from Mecca northwards along the Pilgrim
railway that saw his gallant doings in 1917, his brilliant
'exploits during 1918 were performed outside the Arabian
peninsula, into which country indeed he never had occasion
deeply to penetrate, and at the time of the early peninsular
adventures most of the Arabs of Arabia could scarcely
have known of his existence, while the suggestion implied
of Arabian unification under a foreigner and a non-Moslem
is, of course, a myth. This is not in anyway to be under-
stood as detracting from Lawrence, for whose masterly
and heroic achievements on the Arab front the writer has
the greatest admiration. But we must get the terms
'Arabs' and 'Arabia' clear.
Before the rise of the Prophet Arabs and Arabia may
have been complementary and co-extensive terms. But in
the seventh to eighth centuries the great exodus took place.
Those who went forth grew mighty, prosperous, secular ;
those who stayed at home remained poor, unlearned,
orthodox. The second generation of colonials threw off
allegiance to the mother country. They became a world
power. The rule of Medina patriarchs was no longer
[ 222]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
acceptable to them. At the time of the coming of the
Turks these Arabs had had seven centuries of seeding
amid peoples that had inherited the cultures of ancient
Mesopotamia, ancient Persia, ancient Egypt. They had
acquired a different psychology from that of the Arabs
of Arabia. Theirs had been the Arab civilization, the arts,
science, philosophy, all of which passed Arabia by; theirs
the experience of crusader, Mongol, Tartar, impacts
which Arabia never knew.
The Arabs of Arabia, the peninsular Arabs, on the
other hand, remained inviolate by their poverty, their
remoteness, their unwillingness to change, their hostility
to foreign intrusion. Their deserts and their dogmas re-
mained, for them, the warp and woof of life. In pre-
Islamic days there had been Jewish and Christian colonies
in Arabia, but a fanatical insular spirit had within fifty
years of the Prophet largely driven them forth. The
peninsula today inherits the same spirit. Throughout
Islamic times Arabia has been forbidden country for the
foreigner and the infidel. The cause of this is not purely
political, as I for one, in spite of official connections, have
found opportunities of making many journeys of explora-
tion. But such opportunities for Europeans are rare. In-
deed no European (T. E. Lawrence excepted) has ever
been permitted to visit the holy places of Mecca and
Medina who has not professed himself a follower of
Islam, nor may one go except in peril of his life. An
intolerance survives which is almost without parallel in
the world today and explains why so few European ex-
plorers have penetrated deep into the peninsula scarcely
twenty throughout the ages.
The Arab of the desert is instinctively suspicious of the
man who does not look like himself, dress and talk like
[223]
THE ARABS
him and worship his God. This dislike is not born of fear,
for he considers himself to be a superior person. He be-
lieves he is superior in most things but two. For some
inscrutable reason Allah has given the infidel a temporary
superiority in arms and money, and if you travel in his
country it is well to be wise to these things. You must
make very solid payment for his services, a generosity on
your part, which, be assured, has little to do with your
own volition; it is ascribed to the bountiful and the
compassionate.
From the age of the Prophet to the age of Vasco da
Gama the greater part of Arabia remained veiled in its
old mystery. Doubtless regional groups of Arabs fol-
lowed their simple and primitive ways of life as they con-
tinue to do to this day. The barren wastes supported way-
ward nomads, oases and mountain valleys a sparse, hun-
gry, unlettered people; the coasts sailors and fishermen.
Only along the western fringe of the peninsula had a
great change taken place. Here, as Islam grew to be a
world religion, came Persians, Turks, Kurds and Afghans,
Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians, Berbers and Spanish Moors
in an annual pilgrimage. Mecca attained world eminence.
The Mother of Cities and the City of God, the birthplace
of Muhammad under the shadow of the Mountain of
Light whence came the first astonishing revelations from
the Infinite, became a cosmopolitan city. This old place
of pilgrimage of the pagan Arabs before Muhammad's
day was transformed into a place of pilgrimage for a
world religion. Mecca's sister city, Medina, the city that
gave Muhammad refuge in the years of persecution, the
city of his later-day preachings, his burial place and the
first capital of Arab world empire, had also become a
place of world pilgrimage. Thus Mecca and Medina, the
[224]
S:
"iDamasctis
PERSIA
AMIRATE OF
1BN RASHID
S A' U D I
Bushire
W
Yr X ARAB
AMIRATE <
.Riyadh
I5IST SA12D
N E J D
i A
3" IF .
Mecca
KJMll
DESE&T
*>* u^*
"Sana
Hadhramaut
Ct
PASTJWD PRESENT POLITICAL
DIVISIONS OPJllULSDl
[225]
THE ARABS
holy cities of Islam, acquired world significance under the
new dispensation, and if Meccans of old time valued the
commercial side of their city's sanctity (limited as it then
was to Arabia), Mecca, Medina and the surrounding
tribes came to have a deep sense of a harvest increased
fortyfold now that the Prophet had worked in the vine-
yard. The townsfolk profited by catering for pilgrims, the
rulers by taking a toll of their gifts, the tribesmen by the
wages of transporting visitors come in pursuit of salva-
tion, or by plundering them, whichever was more profit-
able. 1 Without much other wealth of its own the Hijaz
became assured of an eternal livelihood.
This blessedness derived from the visiting subjects of
outside caliphs, who must therefore be recognized as over-
lords. But caliphs, content with the prestige attaching to
such association, generally allowed local rulers a large
measure of autonomy, if not complete freedom, so long
as pilgrims could come and go without being unduly fleeced.
The caliphs, first of Baghdad and then of Cairo, were
obliged at times to assert more than nominal suzerainty
and send a representative to rule the holy places, but they
never thought it worth while to extend their domination,
so that Arabia was virtually detached from the caliphates
in the great days of the Arab period. There was a lack of
identity of interests, political, cultural, economic, between
the Arabs within and the Arabs without, and even senti-
ment waned as the real power behind the caliphs passed
out of Arab keeping into the hands of Persians or of
Turks.
The Arab rulers of the holy places were jealous of their
natural priority at the Arabian end of things, were resent-
^Under the enlightened aegis of Ibn Sa'ud this state of things exists no
longer.
[226]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
ful when the mastery, even nominal, passed to those of
alien blood. These were grounds for friction.
Outside Arabia the Islamic world was divided into its
two great historic divisions, Sunni and Shi'a, but the secu-
lar aspects of civilization at its height overshadowed the
religious. With the primitive Arabs of the peninsula, on
the other hand, religion remained a dominant interest, and
there was space and leisure for cultivating all the refine-
ments of a divided and subdivided Islam. The southern
half of the peninsula was quite early the site of two
principalities, the Yemen and the Oman, each with a
theocratic form of government such as had disappeared in
all but name from the Islamic world without. They were
both anti-Sunm peoples, the Yemenis practising a brand
of Shi'ism known as Zaidism, the Omanis practising Ibadh-
Ism, dissenting from Shi'a and Sunni alike.
Shi'ism, of course, originally found its main support
in Iraq and Persia, but with the advent of the Seljuq
Turks a Sunni domination established itself in Baghdad,
whence Sunni representatives came from time to time to
control the holy cities. Thus in southern Arabia of those
times 'Sunni' came to be associated with 'alien.' It was
natural that Mecca should look for alliance with the Ye-
men, the historic province lying to the south, and the
legitimism of the Yemen that is to say, the religious
principle that true succession vested only in the seed of
the Prophet was a helpful counter to the claims of the
Baghdad caliphs. The preachings of a Yemeni mystic
named Hamdan Carmat, in the ninth century, led to the
spread of legitimism through eastern Arabia, too, and
during the tenth century the Carmathians, as they called
themselves, swept into the holy cities, removed the
sacred Black Stone of the Ka'ba (it remained in eastern
[227]
THE ARABS
Arabia for twenty years) and eliminated Sunni domination
from Mecca for a century.
When Carmathian ardour at length grew cold and
Arabia split up again into its normal scattered autonomies,
legitimism still remained the religious principle of Mecca
and the Yemen, and the two together continued to resist
any encroachments by the caliphs. Cairo at first had filched
Mecca's allegiance from Baghdad, as Shi'ism spread
westwards from Iraq to take official root in Egypt under
the Fatimids. The ruler of Mecca was not as yet ruler of
the province about it, the Hijaz, and his authority was
weakened by internal divisions and by the old rivalry be-
tween the holy cities. In the dynastic struggles for power
the house that looked to the Yemen for support was
often opposed by a party with Medina contacts, and
Medina, from geographical considerations, leaned to-
wards Egypt; but Meccan rulers steadfastly cultivated
the friendship of the imam of Yemen as a counter to the
influence of Baghdad or of Cairo, and this went on into
Ottoman times. When, in the twelfth century, the crusades
drove Shi'as and Sunnis in the north into a common camp
under Saladin, legitimist Mecca felt the pressure and must
again offer prayers for a Sunni caliph. Indeed Sunnism was
soon its established creed, though subservience to Egypt
was thrown off for a time by the rise of Qatada, a local
soldier ruler, who extended Mecca's dominion to embrace
the whole Hijaz province and bequeathed the enlarged
legacy for all time. When, however, the Mamlukes arose
in Egypt, the link was renewed. Baibars, the founder of
the new dynasty, came on 3. pilgrimage to the holy
places, left behind an Egyptian garrison, and so in time
the Hijaz became again an Egyptian appanage. Thus it
came about that when the Turks took Cairo the keys of the
[228]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
Ka'ba, with Mecca's homage, were carried to Selim the
Grim.
Ottoman overlordship of Mecca (the holy places had
known Turkish governors in Abbasid times) in no way
implied overlordship of Arabia. Arabia was not then a
political entity any more than it is today, and virtually
only the Red Sea littoral provinces of the Hijaz and the
Yemen were affected. In the Yemen, where the people
regarded Sunnis as heretics, the yoke was light and for
centuries nominal; the Yemen mountains, a difficult ter-
rain, peopled by a hardy fighting stock, with an Arabian
reputation such as is enjoyed by the frontier hillmen In
India, allowed no secure foothold for intermittent Turkish
garrisons. In the Hijaz, however, conditions for the new
masters were easier. Yet the ruling Arab sharlfs enjoyed
long periods of freedom from control, particularly in the
seventeenth century, at a time Egypt and Syria achieved
a measure of autonomy, though Shi'a heresies were no
longer tolerated, and the sharif s must henceforth be Sunni
coreligionists of the Ottoman Turk, their master.
Arabia, outside these two provinces, remained un-
molested, independent, able to cultivate regional sec-
tarianism to its heart's content. The sects of Islam, the
subdivisions of both Sunnism and Shi'ism, besides the
dissenting sect of Ibadhism, even where not indigenous,
all seem to have found the soil of Arabia congenial.
There was, as there still is, an identity between sectarian-
ism and dynastic government. 2 For Islamic sectarianism
^Zaidism, the state religion of the Yemen a name derived from Zaid,
the grandson of the martyr Husain is a theocratic form of government
in which rule can only vest in the seed of the Prophet. The field thus cir-
cumscribed, the theory allowed democratic election; the practice brought a
hereditary religious office with a tradition of personal sanctity.
Ibadhism, the state religion of Oman, has resemblances to Wahhabism in
[229]
THE ARABS
is a more vital thing than Christian sectarianism ; it is legal
rather than religious. Our nonconformists, for instance,
while divided by academic differences, all live under a com-
mon law, whereas religion and law are so closely identified
in Islam, where practised in its purity, that the difference
between two sects assumes an important difference between
the civil and criminal sanctions under which they re-
spectively live. In the Islamic world outside Arabia, as
we have seen, a liberal interpretation of holy law early
took place, an adaptation, in communities at first pre-
dominantly non-Moslem, to more secular forms, but in
the primitive societies of the peninsula holy law, varying
with the sect, is followed to this day. Zaidi canons differ
in some particulars from Ibadhi canons, while Sunni
canons are different again.
To take, by way of example, a few differences between
the four schools of thought of Sunnism, the orthodox half
of Islam sects known as Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali
which as we saw arose round about the second century
over conflicting interpretations of Qur'anic law. The
Hanafis stood notably for the validity of private judgment
in doubtful cases, provided the judgment was based in
inferences from the Qur'an a system of analogy or
derived sanctions. For instance the Qur'an provided for
theft but not for burglary. By analogy that the motive
of burglary is theft, the Hanafis agreed that the burglar
its puritanism. A very ancient sect, the Ibadhis, are the successors of the
Secessionists who overthrew AH, the fourth caliph, and between whom and
the Shi'as there is therefore the greatest antipathy. The Ibadhi imam need
not be of the seed of the Prophet as with the Zaidis, nor need he be accepted
on grounds of political expediency as with the Sunnis. The theory is that
he should be democratically elected on grounds of piety and learning,
though practice led to temporal and spiritual offices vesting in the same
individual. For the past two centuries, however, the roles have been
separated and still remain so.
[230]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
should suffer the same punishment as the thief, that is, his
hand should be cut off.
The Malikis reacted against this emphasis on the
principle of private judgment and stood for a greater
importance attaching to the Traditions, that is to say, to
precedents ascribed to the Prophet. If no Tradition could
be cited to meet a case, then, said Malik, e the consensus of
opinion' of the theological doctors of Medina must be
followed.
The founder of the Shafi'i sect next arose and, having
studied in both earlier schools, evolved a compromise
avoiding their extremes. Thus in the matter of the con-
sensus of opinion of judges he held that this need not be
confined to the doctors of Medina alone; he attached
great importance, moreover, to the principle that local
canons and long-established usage could not be overlooked
in doubtful cases. South Arabian tribes belong pre-
dominantly to this sect.
The founder of the last school, Hanbali, was a
pupil of Shafi'i but differed from his master's teachings,
disliking the emphasis on 'private judgment' and 'theo-
logical benches' alike, and declaring for 'back to the
Qur'an.' Hanbali sm was the most reactionary and rigidly
traditionalist of the four schools of thought, and after the
sixth century, Hijra, found a lasting footing only in the
Arabian peninsula itself, where in the Nejd, i.e. north
central Arabia, the Wahhabis are its principal strength
today.
The most latitudinarian school has traditionally been
the Hanafi, to which the most advanced Sunni communi-
ties of today belong in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iraq in
short, the old Ottoman Empire. Only the Hanafi, for
instance, held it permissible for prayers to be said in
THE ARABS
tongues other than Arabic. While all four schools agreed
that within Islamic territory Jews and Christians might
not erect places of worship in towns and villages at will,
the Hanafis qualified the restriction under licences to a
one-mile limit from the city walls; while usury was for-
bidden by all schools, the Hanafis allowed from the first
the practice of mortgage and also that of hiring labour
against a share of the produce ; they also provided that a
murderer should pay the extreme penalty death or blood
money as the next of kin may prefer even if the victim
was a Christian, Jew or slave ; with them, too, a male may
suffer the extreme penalty for the murder of a female,
and an old woman for a young one. By ShafTi and Maliki
codes, on the other hand, a Moslem could not be slain for
the murder of an unbeliever, or a freeman for a slave.
The Hanafis did except the cases of the man murdering
his own son or his own slave ; the extreme penalty in such
cases was not imposed. 9 *
Between Shi'a and Sunni differences in domestic usage
were along the following lines. In the matter of custody of
children after divorce the mother in Shi'a practice retained
the child while it was at the breast, i.e. until two years old;
after weaning the father had the right to it. In the Shafi'i
sect the mother kept the child till it reached the age of
seven, when it could choose which parent it would go to.
In the Maliki sect the boy remained in the mother's custody
till puberty and the girl till marriage. With them all a
son's apostasy from Islam in later times excluded him
from a right to his share of inheritance, so also an unbe-
liever or a slave could not inherit from a believer. Bas-
tardy with the Sunnis excluded inheritance from the father
but not the mother ; with the Shi'as from both.
Outside Arabia the distribution of Islamic sects is al-
[232]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
most geographical; west of Egypt the Maliki sect of
Sunnism runs, as in times past, throughout north Africa
and during the Moslem period (eighth to fifteenth cen-
turies) extended over into Spain; eastwards Shi'as pre-
dominate in Iraq and Persia, a few are found in Afghan-
istan, while in India they form a small minority. But
among Moslems of this outside world the criminal sanc-
tions of holy law have disappeared, and even some domes-
tic aspects have been superseded by alien-derived practices.
In Arabia itself, however, the legal sanctions of sectarian
practice are still in many parts de rigueur. State law is the
complement of state religion and is administered by state
qadhis. In the most liberal states there are qadhis for each
of the Islamic legal codes ; in others religious intolerance
forbids any but the particular law of the state sect; while
in many tribal areas the ancient usages, running counter to
holy law, have survived. The Arab is born into one or other
of the many sects after the manner of Gilbert's England,
where
Every little girl and boy alive
Is born either Liberal or Conservative.
For in peninsular Arabia the strong religious prejudices of
his environment make it extremely difficult or unwise for a
man to change. Sectarianism is not a matter of intellectual
persuasion ; it is a tribal or family escutcheon. And as for
our modern Western secular sectionalisms Liberalism,
Conservativism, Socialism, Communism, Capitalism,
Fascism these are not even dimly apprehended and so
create no problems in the peninsular mind. The Arab of
Arabia is a Wahhabi of Nejd, an Ibadhi of Oman, a
Shafi'i of Hadhramaut or the like. These are the realities.
Arabia is not a political entity in spite of its common
blood and tongue and social culture Western criteria of
[233]
THE ARABS
nationalism. Its patriarchal tribal culture and the Arab's
waywardness and love of individual freedom are agents
perpetuating disintegration. Its thin-spread population,
not as large as the city of Greater London, and dotted
about a country half the size of Europe, makes for want
of cohesion; the means of livelihood of its various parts is
mutually exclusive, so that there is no economic advantage
in unity; and, finally, historic tradition of opposing polit-
ical and religious divisions is strong* Arabia is made up
of numerous governments, each with its own dynastic
ruler, its official religious sect (law), and each jealous to
maintain its own traditional independence. Some in the
Hadhramaut and the Persian Gulf are little bigger than
city-states such as Lahej, Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi,
Dibai, Kuwait; others are loose tribal confederations
whose paramount chiefs owe allegiance to none such as
the Janaba, Mahra, Manahil and Sa'ar that lie continu-
ously across south Arabia; the comparatively big terri-
torial divisions are today three : the Yemen, the Oman, and
greatest and most dominant, if most recent, Sa'udi Arabia,
lying to the north of them.
In a thinly populated, hungry country geographical size
is not a necessary criterion of importance. The little state
of Bahrain, 3 for instance, a British-protected group of
8 Shi*ism is the chief sect of Bahrain, though, as in Muscat, other sects,
notably Maliki, Shafi'i and Ismaili elements, are present. The last named
are the followers of the Aga Khan, so well known in European circles. As
the present-day imam of the sect he is an almost sacred figure with his
followers not only in the Persian Gulf but parts of western India and East
Africa too. These Ismailis, like the Zaidls of the Yemen, are historically
a branch of Shi'ism, though now nonconforming and distinct. They are in
agreement on the fundamental principle of succession in the Prophet's line
but stop at the seventh generation (hence they are known as Sevenites, too)
instead of the twelfth as do the Shi'as. They do not believe in a living con-
cealed imam like the Shi'a Mahdi. With them there is an alternation of
imams in public and in concealment; all, however, dying in due course.
[234]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
islands off the east coast has a world importance : to the
fair sex for its pearls ; to commerce for its potential oil
this struck quite recently by some American concession-
aires; to Persia for a shadowy claim to suzerainty; and to
Britain as an air and naval station near the source of its
Persian oil supply and on the air route to India,
The Yemen, lying across the left-hand bottom corner
of the Arabian map facing Abyssinia, and Oman, lying
across the right-hand bottom corner facing India, each
inherits great traditions of Arabian prestige ; the Yemen
being the soil of the ancient south Arabian civilization;
the Oman a maritime state famous before and after Sind-
bad the Sailor ! little more than a century ago still exer-
cised a hegemony over the Persian littoral, held sover-
eignty in Zanzibar and the neighbouring African coast
and was the object of Napoleon's interest. Pre-eminent
today is Sa'udi Arabia, lying to the north of them, an
amalgam of three separate Arabian principalities, viz.
the sharifate of Mecca and the two central Arabian am-
irates of Ibn Rashid and Ibn Sa'ud the Hijaz, Nejd,
Hasa and Asir constituting the entire northern half of
the peninsula.
At the time of the outbreak of the Great War these
enjoyed separate existences. Indeed, among all the princes
of Arabia, Husain, the grand sharif of Mecca, stood fore-
most in the eyes of the outside Moslem world, this not in
virtue of personal prestige, for he was the nominee of the
Turks, but by reason of controlling the holy cities of
Mecca and Medina. It was the custom of Turkey to recog-
nize the head of the Hashimite family of Mecca, the fam-
ily from which the Prophet sprang, as ex officio the Keeper
of the Holy Places. This by no means meant that he was
paramount among the princes in Arabia. These, in their
THE ARABS
various states, were rulers by hereditary right and would
not have regarded him as in any way their superior, for,
as a client who might be removed by a principal to make
way for another member of his family (his own was a
fortuitous appointment), he was in a way less than a
dynastic ruler.
The other two principalities of what is now Sa'udi
Arabia, northern Nejd (dynasty of Ibn Rashid) and
southern Nejd (Ibn Sa'ud), were both comparatively re-
cent, neither more than two hundred years old, but they
had had time to become hereditary enemies, and at various
times each, in turn, had dispossessed the other to rule the
combined territories for a generation or so. Thus at the
beginning of the century Ibn Rashid was in possession. At
the outbreak of the Great War the two amirates were of
about equal strength and existed side by side, Ibn Rashid
being on friendly terms, Ibn Sa'ud at enmity, with the
sharif of Mecca.
Periodical ascendancy of the Sa'udi house has mainly
resulted from their championing the cause of a periodical
religious revival which has come to be known by the name
Wahhabism. The founder of this movement, Muhammad
ibn Abdul Wahhab, was a religious reformer and revival-
ist who, exactly two hundred years ago, returned from
theological studies in eastern Islamic countries to set his
native central Arabia aflame with his eloquence. An an-
cestor of Ibn Sa'ud married the preacher's daughter and so
strengthened still further the connection between the rul-
ing family and the religious movement. Thirty years later
the sword and religious fanaticism had extended the puri-
tanical message and Sa'udi dominion over a greater part
of the peninsula (the Yemen excepted) ; the holy cities fell
into Wahhabi hands, and the gold ornamentation of the
[236]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
Prophet's tomb was torn off as an offense to God. Bands of
Wahhabis invaded as far north as the grazing grounds of
Iraq, to the west of the Euphrates, spreading terror and
intolerance, until one day they fell upon the beautiful
shrine of Husain at Kerbala, sacred to the whole Shi'a
world, and stripped it of some of its artistic splendour.
Turkey was alarmed at the sudden rise of power that
was a constant menace to her borderlands and, conscious
of her responsibility in the eyes of the whole Moslem
world to keep open the Pilgrim route, would have moved
against the desert but was too weak to do so and in any
case found it politically prudent to allow the initiative to
pass to the self-appointed, ambitious viceroy of Egypt,
the Albanian, Muhammad Ali. This strong man sent an
army via the Red Sea to invade Arabia from the west.
The march was successfully made across the peninsula to
the headquarters of the movement, which was destroyed
(Riyadh, the present capital, is thus of more recent or-
igin), and the Wahhabi power was vanquished for a
generation.
During periods of revival Wahhabis are intolerant of
other sects of Islam. To themselves they are the only
man in the regiment in step, as it were ; the rest are heretics
every one. The theological and philosophical speculations
which made Arabian civilization famous in the Middle
Ages are heresies to be purged, if necessary by force, from
the faith as delivered; the wearing of silk garment or gold
ornament is a sin, and the delinquent is beaten; smoking is
not tolerated, either, for who is to say whether the Prophet
would not have forbidden it ; but worse than this, the il-
lumination of shrines of dead saints or the presentation of
offerings to them is an abomination, so that some of the
[237]
THE ARABS
most beautiful architectural edifices of Islam are a re-
proach to the faith.
The Wahhabis consider their creed the pure and un-
defiled religion delivered through the Arabian Prophet.
The Prophet to them is, as he taught, just a man, and the
temptation to exalt him must be resisted. The attributes
which Moslem sects have invested him with, but which he
did not himself claim, are repudiated.
With the true Wahhabi laxity is sinful, and attendance
at the mosque is obligatory. The wages of unbelief has, in
times of crisis, been death, and chastisement for offences
odious to their code is a commonplace; wherefore, in the
later stages of my crossing of the south Arabian desert in
1931, I, as a self-confessed Christian, and my desert
companions of Shafi'i tenets kept a careful watch to avoid
collisions with any of these pious folk.
It is this movement which Arabia's outstanding figure,
Abdul 'Aziz ibn Sa'ud, a religious man but by no means a
fanatic himself had championed as his forefathers did
before him when he regained possession of the state his
father had lost. The hand of fate was against him in early
life. Born at Riyadh, he had, at the age of nine, to accom-
pany his father into exile after the latter's defeat by his
northern rival, Ibn Rashid, whose star at that time was
in the ascendant. As is often the case in Arabia, the way
back to power lay through blood. His father, having from
his exile in Kuwait made a final abortive attempt against
his rival by open warfare, handed on the hereditary feud to
the young boy.
Ibn Sa'ud, only nineteen at the time, set out in the win-
ter of 1900 from his asylum at Kuwait, with forty men, on
his reckless desert mission to win back his patrimony. Ar-
riving overnight a short distance from Riyadh, he halted,
[238]
KING IBN SA'UD (ABDUL AZIZ IBN SA'UD).
(By courtesy of the Royal Legation 0} Sa'udi Arabia, London)
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
picked out six men to be his companions for the hazardous
enterprise; the rest he enjoined to wait till the morning,
when, if there was no news of him, they must fly for their
lives back to Kuwait. Under cover of night he and his tiny
party scaled the walls and made stealthily for the house
next door to that of the governor, the representative of his
father's usurper. They knocked upon the door, which was
opened, forcibly made their entry, keeping the inmates
under close arrest so as not to raise the alarm, then passed
on to the governor's house and took the same precaution
there, and so kept vigil during the dark hours against the
governor's return in the morning, for it was his habit to
sleep in the fort across the way. At dawn the fort gates
were opened, and, oblivious of the presence of an enemy,
the governor and his bodyguard came walking slowly to-
wards the house. Ibn Sa'ud with his tiny party lying secretly
in wait behind the door chose an opportune moment,
rushed forth and took his enemies by surprise. There was
a stiff fight, for the attackers were outnumbered four to
one and, being in the open, were exposed to fire from the
fort. The governor fell in the first onset ; his death threw
his companions into confusion, and the attackers quickly
became masters of the situation, the guards surrendering
in the belief that reinforcements must be at hand. Then,
entering the fort of his fathers, the intrepid youth pro-
claimed himself governor of Riyadh, to the surprise and
joy of the population.
A revival of Wahhabism was due, and a decade or two
later the southern Nejd was aflame with zeal to purge
the Arabian peninsula of its heresies, and the means to
this end were the Ikhwan, the puritan army of Ibn Sa'ud.
During the Great War Ibn Sa'ud, in receipt of a subsidy
from the British government, remained benevolently neu-
[239]
THE ARABS
tral, though an embarrassing situation arose from the
fact that he and our more actively engaged Arabian ally,
the sharif of Mecca, were implacable enemies. Ibn Sa'ud's
wartime attempt against Ibn Rashid, traditionally friendly
with the sharif, though at the time client of the Turks,
came to nought. But after the war had ended the Wahhabi
leader marched (192223) to a more successful attack
and wrested Ibn Rashid's territory from him, so that
northern Nejd became his, and a few years later by
which time both he and the sharif had ceased to enjoy
their war subsidies from Britain, and the sharif had
ceased to enjoy British protection he marched against
the Hijaz. The sharif, who had meanwhile assumed the
title of King of the Arabs, had become discredited with
his own people and with Moslems overseas, from his in-
ability to quell or satisfy Hijazi tribesmen who were plun-
dering pilgrims, rendering the pilgrimage unsafe.
Taif fell, and King Husain's army was routed. Mecca
submitted after a short siege, and a little later Medina
and Jidda, too, passed into Ibn Sa'ud's hands, so that the
Hijaz province was now added to his central Arabian
possessions, and shortly afterwards he assumed the title
of King of the Hijaz. The passing of the Hijaz under Ibn
Sa'ud's sway came with a minimum of upheaval, not be-
cause Wahhabism was loved, but because misrule was
ended and because Ibn Sa'ud enjoyed great personal pres-
tige and reputation for just, wise and strong rule. It was
the triumph of the great personal leader; Arabia had
again been true to her tradition that it is the man, not the
system that counts.
The possession of the holy places has been a pillar of
strength to Ibn Sa'ud, but a source of weakness to the
fanatical movement by which he rose to power. Pilgrim
[240]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
revenues are a vital means of keeping the hungry desert
quiet, while the responsibility to an outside Moslem world
compels a degree of toleration which is the very negation
of aggressive Wahhabism. For the Sa'udi house, revenue
and dynastic considerations must curb the desert ardour.
Meanwhile, for pilgrims who do not go out of their way to
off end mellowed Wahhabi susceptibilities, there is greater
security for life and property under Ibn Sa'ud than nor-
mally fell to the lot of their predecessors down the cen-
turies.
The livelihood of Arabia's natives is pitched low, by
any Western standard. Over a greater part of the country
it is a bare subsistence economy, where man counts his
wealth in his camels or his oxen, his asses or goats his
menservants and maidservants perhaps rather than his
money. Of money there is very little indeed. Only in certain
favoured coastal regions where towns are to be found its
most populous parts is a wage system and other resem-
blances to a Western commercial mechanism found, and
the houses of wealthy personages may know of the simpler
Western amenities.
The pilgrimage brings considerable, if artificial, local
prosperity. Of late years, on account of the world depres-
sion, it has declined. Medina, once a city of seventy thou-
sand, has now a mere fifteen thousand inhabitants, though
that is but the measure of its own fall. For centuries
Medina was the main portal of the pilgrim's way, and the
Pilgrim Railway from Damascus, built in the decade be-
fore the war, had its terminus there ; but wartime destruc-
tion of the railway and the competition of postwar motor
transport has been to Medina's hurt, and today most pil-
grims come first to Mecca by way of the seaport of Jidda.
The twentieth-century Moslem prefers the motorcar to
THE ARABS
the camel that was the vehicle of the Prophet's pilgrimages
and that of his own ancestors for thirteen centuries past,
though from a spirit of piety or as the penalty of poverty
a few eschew the foreign machine in favour of walking.
Many of the Negro pilgrims have thus accomplished the
long journey from central or even west Africa. They spend
years on the pilgrimage, working their way from place to
place across the Dark Continent, some of their brothers
falling by the wayside, others being born en route.
Another source of such wealth as Arabia can boast is
her Persian Gulf pearl fisheries, centred in Bahrain. Two
millions sterling was realized for the harvest of 1926,
though a quarter of that income would be welcome today.
Each year during the summer months when the inland
sea is calm (and red, red hot!) the natives of Arabia's
eastern littoral, freemen and slaves, abandon their normal
avocations and swarm down to the coasts to become
divers for the season. Dhows and other small native craft,
packed with motley crews, go out and anchor over favour-
ite banks, usually in about ten to fifteen fathoms of water,
and carry on their diving in the selfsame way that the
Moorish visitor, Ibn Batuta, saw and described six cen-
turies ago. Nowadays the scene has one addition. A British
naval sloop comes and goes, playing the traditional part
in these waters of policeman and friend.
Thirty times a day the diver takes his deep breath and
is lowered into the sea, to remain below for about a min-
ute and a half and then be hauled up to the surface for a
blow. He dives naked except for his loin cloth and a bag
slung round his neck to hold the oysters which he wrenches
off the sea bed ; a leather clip, like a clothes peg, closes his
nostrils; his finger tips and toes are protected by leather
sheaths. The rest of the simple equipment consists of two
[242]
A SMALL DHOW ON THE PEARLING BANKS OFF
BAHRAIN.
(By courtesy of Mr K. P. Xarayan)
'>
OVER A WATER-HOLE IN THE THIRSTY DESERT.
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
ropes, one weighted by a stone on which he is lowered, the
other a communication rope to signal to his companions
in the boat above when he has had enough, for a jinn some-
times enters the poor wretch's head, in which case his
nose and ears are prone to bleed ! Throughout the season
divers eat little and must dive fasting except for a cup of
coffee and a few dates. It is an unhealthy occupation, and
divers usually die young, so that the lady who, on humani-
tarian grounds, shuns wearing fur and feathers, should, to
be consistent, have misgivings about her pearl necklace if
it is strung of rose pearls from the Gulf banks the most
precious of all their kind unless of course she takes
up the attitude : 'Would the diver who wants to dive be
grateful for the unemployment?' The diving industry is in
native hands, and the absence of modern methods of diving
is due to native apprehension lest the goose be killed that
lays the golden eggs. Arabian pearls go via Bombay to
Paris, the world's pearl mart, and thence the most precious
find their way to London and New York. In common with
all luxury industries, pearling has suffered by the world
slump, but a more insidious future enemy may be the cul-
tured pearl industry of Japan.
If the world's most precious pearls come from eastern
Arabian waters, the world's best coffee comes from south-
western Arabia, where it is native to the mountains of the
Yemen. At the port of Mocha whence its trade name
Portuguese mariners, soon after their discovery of the
Cape of Good Hope, met with it and introduced it into
Europe, so that it was a novelty in England in the same
century that saw the introduction of tobacco and the po-
tato, both from the New World, of course. The Arabian
crop today is small, and Arabian coffee a luxury mainly
bought up by London and New York. For although coffee
[243']
THE ARABS
is the national beverage of Arabia, only the very rich can
afford Mocha, and the poorer Arabs buy their everyday
coffee from the outside world to which they first taught
its use.
Another epicurean product of Arabia, fancied more by
China and Malaya than the West, is the soup made from
the fins and tails of sharks. The Persian Gulf and Indian
Ocean swarm with sharks the pearl diver is too good a
fatalist to be afraid of them and some hundred thousand
are caught every year off the coasts of Oman alone. Indeed,
these fisheries are an industry secondary only to date
culture, and Oman's famous date groves extend for more
than a hundred miles along its sandy tropic shores to a
depth of a mile or two, from where the fruit, ripening
earlier than elsewhere, is quickly rushed away to meet
America's voracious needs.
The spices of Arabia are a more romantic source of in-
come. Frankincense and myrrh, both the resinous sub-
stances of wild trees that made south Arabia famous in
ancient times, come today almost exclusively from one
province, Dhufar, possibly the Ophir of antiquity, a ter-
ritory of the central south under the Muscat flag. On
social occasions the frankincense brazier is passed around
the assembly with the ritualistic coffee ; and when evil is
abroad it has a magical value for exorcism, but most of
the crop goes overseas to be used in the service of Buddhist
temples of India and the Farther East.
One other industry of coastal Arabia must be mentioned
its boatbuilding. The picturesque Arab dhow with its
forward-raking mainmast carrying a big single stretch of
sail, a tiny mizzenmast incongruously raking the other
way, the high Elizabethan look of the poop and the grace-
ful droop of the waist, are features that clearly belong to
[244]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
the distant past. He who has a sentiment for our old sail-
ing ship meets with enchantment as he voyages across the
Indian Ocean at any time except when the southwest mon-
soon drives these quaint fore-and-afters off the open sea
into their summer anchorages. Here is a craft that has
come unchanging across the ages. Almost every Arab
seaport has its own traditional build and rig, Kuwait and
Sur perhaps the most famous. Dhows up to two hundred
tons burden carry dates and frankincense and shark's
meat to India and Africa, and bring back rice, the staple
food of the well-to-do, sugar, piece goods and other
simple requirements of a poor oriental people.
The hardy Arab mariners, possessed of imperfect in-
struments and a nodding acquaintance with the rudiments
of navigation, yet have a knowledge of the elements which
even our more scientific sailors may envy. In the annual
voyage to East Africa they run down before the northeast
monsoon without too nice a sense of longitude and, on
reaching the desired latitude, turn west to make a landfall.
It is a common experience of British ships in these parts
to be hailed at sea by one of these craft that has made a
bad voyage with the request for water and its bearings.
But the camaraderie of the sea is sometimes thought to be
a trifle one sided when the Arab dhow, economizing in
head or other lights up to the fifty-ninth minute, suddenly
flashes her presence dead ahead out of a black night.
A thousand years ago such dhows were all that these
oceans knew. From the Persian Gulf they sailed eastwards
to Malacca and Java for the tin required by Abbasid metal-
workers, an intrepid adventurer among them sometimes
voyaging on into the China Seas. With India upon their
way, an ancient trade with it stood at a high pitch of de-
velopment, and Arab colonies sprang up in Bombay and
[245]
THE ARABS
Sind, which survive to this day. Westwards, too, the
Arabs sailed for gold to the islands of Wagwag, i.e. Mada-
gascar their name also for Japan and sowed the seed
which ripened into Arabian colonization and the annexa-
tion of Zanzibar little more than a century ago. From
these voyages came the tall yarns ascribed to Arab sea
captains, not hampered by too strong an addiction to the
religious truth, which found their way into the literature
of the times, though curiously enough the doings of Sind-
bad the Sailor and all the rest of his romantic kind in The
Arabian Nights to us as entrancing as Greek or Nordic
folk tales are a form of literature about which the
serious-minded literate Arab is often a little scornful.
Dhows hauled up along the Arab beaches have a mon-
strous, whalelike appearance as they lean over at alarming
angles on their bulging bilges. In process of building they
are a joy to behold. The ribs take on a beautiful symmetry
at the hands of craftsmen who appear to have no elaborate
drawings to guide them and work by eye and rule of thumb-
In Kuwait the barren woman comes by stealth at night to
jump over a new-laid keel, an old fertility cult, while the
watchman shoos her off lest she take virtue out of the
ship-
Early Persian contacts and long seafaring intercourse
with Iraq and India give the small seaports of eastern
Arabia a cosmopolitan air and a comparatively advanced
and tolerant outlook. The successful merchant-shipowner
delights in bringing back to his date garden exotic plants
he has met with on his travels. In the Hadhramaut, which
province shares with the Yemen the pride of an ancient
civilization and with New York a fancy for incipient sky-
scrapers, the tradition is with Java. The native goes off
when young to the East Indies and returns, in later life,
[246]
W
Ow
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
with his fortune made; he has not ceased to be an Arab,
though he has ceased to have an Arabian outlook.
But these are the coastal fringes. Arabia's great heart
remains untouched and her mood forbidding. The no-
madic tribes find the camel well-nigh sufficient for their
simple wants. They subsist almost exclusively on its milk
and occasionally its flesh; their houses are tents of hair
made from its wool, their clothing in some measure from
the same source too. In prewar days there was a camel-
raising industry in the northwest for export via Damascus
to Egypt. At that time the camel was the ideal means of
transport in those neighbouring countries that lacked
roads and much water, but the introduction of the Ameri-
can motorcar has brought great changes, and what was
once a valuable export trade has decayed. So, too, a horse-
raising industry flourished in the northeast, horses being
exported to India where they were popular for polo, but
the disappearance of the rule which imposed a height re-
striction and which in the old days made 'the Arab' ideal,
has put the small and beautiful animal out of the game,
and so the horse trade has greatly declined.
Cultural divisions of the Arabian society, if most
marked between coast and desert, run also laterally across
the various states. It is the old division between the
settled Arab cultivator, merchant, townsman on the
one hand, and our friends the Beduin on the other; the
former wedded to ways of law and order, the latter to a
wayward life which involves plundering each other or
settled Arab, as occasion demands or opportunity offers.
These two elements of the population are persuaded by
long experience that their interests clash. They are mutu-
ally antipathetic. Each believes in armed force as a way of
cowing the other. If you want peace with your neighbour
[247]
THE ARABS
the Arab proverb tells you the Arab way: 'In one hand
bread, in the other a sword.'
Islam, the religion that had its cradle among the Arabs
of Arabia, reflects their democratic spirit in its insistence
on the equality of believers. For the non-Arab slave no
equal social status is conceded, so that in this Arabia goes
back on her democracy and indeed is today one of the very
few countries left in the world to practise and justify
slavery. Arabian male slavery is of two kinds, industrial
and domestic. The former supplies the needs of date gar-
dens and pearl fisheries. The latter, the more usual form,
where the slave is the retainer, the bodyguard, the house
servant, is not a harsh and pitiless exploitation of labour
like the old industrial slavery of our West Indian colonies
the usual connotation of slavery in Western minds.
Slaves are often treated as members of the family, fed
and clothed every bit as well as others. I have, in fact,
known of a slave who was liberated and then voluntarily
returned to the bondage of his old master in preference
to the insecurity that came with freedom. But slavery is
intolerable for all that. The slave is a property. Slave
dealers are free to traffic in their human wares, those who
specialize in slaves being always in touch with intending
buyers and sellers, and they conduct would-be purchasers
to the houses where the slaves may be inspected. The
majority of slaves, however, certainly the more fortunate
among them, remain in the same family for generation af-
ter generation.
The answer to the question Why do the Arabs want
slaves? is in part sociological, in part economic. Slavery
is a traditional part of the social structure. It is congenial.
The peninsular Arabs are in the mass far too proud to
work as servants, far too independent in spirit to obey a
[248]
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
master, so that the well-to-do have either to do their work
themselves or to resort to slavery. This is why, among a
poor people having little more than a subsistence culture,
all attempts at the suppression of slavery have hitherto
failed.
In the very early wars of Islam the practice was to treat
prisoners as slaves and allot them to Arab warriors as
part of the plunder of war. The end of these wars brought
a fruitful source of slave supply to its close. Slave raiding
into Africa was thereby given a greater stimulus, and for
the last few centuries Africa has been the chief source of
supply. Among slaves that one sees in Arabia today
Negroes easily predominate, though Abyssinians and
Baluchis are to be found.
My own experience after living for many years in parts
of Arabia where slavery forms an integral part of the
social structure is that few slave transhipments are com-
ing in from overseas today. In the old days British naval
activities did a great deal to make external slave dealing
hazardous; today internal slavery perpetuates itself by
slaves begetting slaves. They are usually married at
puberty, and so fresh slaves are brought into the world
ad infinitum, and these, by religious law as locally inter-
preted, are the property of the master and when he dies are
inherited like any other form of property.
The British government, with some difficulty and much
unpopularity, made slave agreements in times past with
most of the coastal states of Arabia, under which slaves
escaping to a British consulate are manumitted, while on
the high seas British naval ships exercise the right to search
native craft for slave runners. But within Arabia itself
slavery flourishes with the full support of public opinion,
and any extraneous authority interfering becomes odious
[249]
THE ARABS
in the eyes of the people. It is a vested interest of im-
memorial respectability.
Most enlightened Arabian rulers, though they doubt-
less privately consider that it would be a very good thing
if slavery were no more, dare not affront influential sub-
jects who favour slavery and possess slaves. These rulers,
no less than Western ones, must not go out of their way
to alienate the governed if they are to survive. And, short
of coercive measures which no one is likely to take, only a
change of public opinion a new general attitude of mind
will ensure permanent abolition. Today King Ibn Sa'ud
is tackling this very difficult problem sympathetically and
wisely, but up to recent times the measure in which Arab
rulers co-operated with a foreign power on an issue of
this kind was construed as the measure of their depend-
ence upon that foreign power. No really independent Arab
ruler could attempt to overthrow the age-hallowed institu-
tion of slavery when he knew that such measures were
equated in the minds of his people with a foreign and
Christian policy, a policy obviously alien to, and subversive
of, their own state of society. Changes in the social system
have to be gradual if an upheaval is to be avoided. Certain
pilgrims of affluence are being encouraged to buy a slave
or slaves and set them free, and well-to-do Hijazis are said
to be doing the same as an act of worship or to celebrate
some happy occasion the birth of a child, the recovery of
a near relative from sickness and the like.
In the unabatement of slavery Arabia has been false
to her Prophet. Muhammad, as we have seen, was no up-
holder of slavery is held to have had no slaves himself.
He exhorted his followers to manumit slaves and appor-
tioned a part of the revenues of the state to the same ends.
His goal may well have been total emancipation. In his
[250]
BEDUIN OF SOUTH ARABIAN DESERT BORDERLANDS.
TOWNSMEN: A FAMILY GROUP OF ARAB (PERSIAN
GULF) PEARL MERCHANTS.
THE ARABS OF ARABIA
farewell sermon on Mount Arafat he did not forget them :
'And your slaves ! See that you feed them with such food
as you eat yourselves and clothe them with the stuff you
wear; and if they commit a fault for which you are not in-
clined to forgive them, part with them for they are the
servants of God and are not to be harshly treated. 5
CHAPTER X
Rise of the West: Eastern Repercussions
MUST take leave of the Arabs of Arabia to re-
sume our outline of the greater Arab world without,
where we left it, as the sunset glories of the Arab caliphates
finally faded under the shadow of Ottoman conquest. Arab
civilization was already far gone in decay. Great Moslem
architecture, it is true, continued in Egypt and in Persia
a country that had long ceased to be under Arab rule ; the
arts still flourished; indeed, Persian art was to grow in
the seventeenth century to its zenith, surpassing the splen-
dour of its Arab period. But science had declined among
the Arabs some hundreds of years before (about the thir-
teenth century) with the hardening of dogmatic intoler-
ance, when religious zeal revived and brought with it
disapproval of philosophers because their works might
lead to unbelief.
From the Ottoman conquest on through the subsequent
four centuries to our own times was a period of further
Arab eclipse and decay. The Arabs sank back into ob-
scurity from which the recent Great War has helped to
rescue them continuing to be content with their subor-
RISE OF THE WEST
dinate part in a super-national state of Islamic form the
Ottoman Empire.
This same period saw the rise of Western Europe to a
position of world ascendancy. The West was destined to
exercise far-reaching influence on Arab destinies, Western
political philosophy was to weaken the Turkish shackles,
Western arms to sever them. But the process was long
delayed. The earlier forms of civilization, especially Is-
lamic civilization, had, as we saw, at first been moulded
by religion rather than nationality. It was religion that had
differentiated social cultures and shaped political alle-
giances. Islam had evoked a loyalty transcending race or
nation. With the remarkable rise of Western civilization,
a civilization that in its later forms was inspired not so
much by religion as by political ideals, oriental life and
thought became more and more modified, and, since the
Arab countries during this period formed part of the Ot-
toman dominions, their conversion is part of the Ottoman
story.
The East, grown poor and backward, was first im-
pressed by the material prosperity of the new West, a
prosperity which seemed to lie at the roots of Western
prestige and power. The growth of this prosperity, there-
fore, especially where it had Ottoman and Arab con-
tacts, is of much more than passing interest. As Islam lost
control of the western Mediterranean the early maritime
expansion of Venetians and Genoese led to their later es-
tablishment by the crusades on the shores of the Levant;
the Mongols, tolerant of Christianity, sweeping west-
wards, were next to lure Marco Polo and other merchant
adventurers Into unknown Asia and lift a corner of the
veil that obscured remotest China. So came the growing
knowledge of the wealth of the Indies that provoked
[253]
THE ARABS
Western curiosity and further adventuring, and hence, at
the very time the Ottomans were rising to imperial do-
minion in the Near East, Western mariners were circum-
navigating Africa, rediscovering Arabia's seaboards, for-
gotten since Byzantine times, and opening up the treasures
of India and the even greater opportunities of the Amer-
icas.
But Western influence, if founded in the material pros-
perity which sprung from this pioneering, was not con-
fined to it. The flowering of Renaissance learning which
continued increasingly to flourish along the subsequent
centuries exalted the West and impressed its growing su-
periority on the declining East. Western enlightenment as
well as Western prosperity gave a benediction to Western
forms of political organization, and these In time came
to find favour and acceptance. Thus nationalism, a West-
ern concept of state organization and one running counter
to Islamic internationalism, made headway in the Otto-
man Empire and played a main part in Ottoman dissolu-
tion and Arab revival ; democratic institutions of Western
origin, too, that ran counter to traditional absolutism, also
found champions in academic circles.
The struggle which had resolved itself in crusading
times around three civilizations Western, Near East,
Middle East, or in other words, broadly speaking, Latin
Christendom, Eastern Christendom and Islam we left
at the point where the West had withdrawn, unsuccessful,
from the contest, and Middle East had triumphed over
Near East as the Ottoman Turks established themselves
in the Balkans. The subsequent centuries have brought
Middle Eastern decay and Western world ascendancy.
The religious spirit was still active in the pioneer days
of trade. The great explorers, Vasco da Gama, Chris-
[254]
RISE OF THE WEST
topher Columbus and De Albuquerque, all bore the Cross
on their breasts and thought of themselves as inheritors
of a sacred tradition. The first naval campaigns in the
Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century were infused with
this spirit, and the Portuguese records of their operations
in the Red Sea thirty years after the discovery of the Cape
of Good Hope show them bent upon the seizure of Mecca
'for the Glory of God and His most Catholic Majesty.'
A setback before Jidda sent them scurrying back to Aden,
which served as their base for voyages of exploration into
the Red Sea whence they penetrated to the Isthmus of
Suez itself.
To these Portuguese belong the honours of pioneers.
In the great Western movement for world trade they were
the first Europeans to make contacts, in Islamic times, with
the Arabs of the peninsula. These early days saw their
penetration into the Persian Gulf, too, where Hormuz,
a flourishing medieval port on the Persian side, was their
lure, and for its mastery they strove during a century and
a half. De Albuquerque, their famous admiral, descended
upon the opposite shores of eastern Arabia, built forts and
threw garrisons into them as the splendid remains of the
period at Muscat, the battered fort masonry and old
muzzle-loading guns that litter the foreshore for two hun-
dred miles to north and south, still bear eloquent testi-
mony. But the West as yet had little to teach the Arabs.
Portuguese activities were not even imperial; their pur-
pose was trade, where possible by peaceful means, where
not possible under armed occupation. Their enterprise
must not on that account be belittled. He who is acquainted
with these fearsome parts and can visualize their difficul-
ties must be awed with admiration for their great qualities
as seamen and adventurers. Their small sailing ships were
[255]
THE ARABS
scarcely bigger than the biggest of the opposing native
ones, and by these many times outnumbered ; they navi-
gated waters about which they at first had no nautical
knowledge; they engaged an enemy thousands of miles
from their bases, so that in reality they had no bases ; and
to get supplies of food and water in times of war must
land and fight an incalculable foe; they were unequipped
for one of the hottest and most trying climates in the
world, where indeed the Persian poet would have us be-
lieve 'the panting sinner receives a foretaste of his future
destiny.* At times they were driven to drastic measures,
and a tradition lingers in Muscat of an occasion when
they cut off the noses of every male inhabitant they could
lay their hands on. Among a warlike people overmuch
given to revenge, and themselves alive to the danger of
coming back again which they must do it is clear they
were strong men possessed of indomitable courage.
By the seventeenth century British and Dutch traders
had appeared upon the scene to share with Portuguese and
Arabs what trade was going, the Turkish masters of Iraq
taking as yet no active interest in Persian Gulf commerce.
British mariners came and went; one of the most notable,
the discoverer of Baffin Bay, left his bones to whiten there.
As the official report of the day has it, 'Master Baffin
went on shore with his geometrical instruments for the
taking the height and distance of the castle wall for the
better levelling of his piece to make his shot ; but as he was
about the same he received a small shot from the castle
into his belly, wherewith he gave three leaps by report and
died immediately.' 33 *
As the East India Company pushed forth its agents the
Portuguese soon fell to third place and then dropped out
of the race; while the Dutch, penetrating to Iraq itself
[256]
RISE OF THE WEST
with bigger ships and more astute factors, led the going.
Such trading activities, part of a wider merchant enter-
prise the world over, resulted in the West laying the foun-
dations of greater wealth and a higher standard of living
for itself, but trade rivalry involved political action and
brought the Ottoman Empire into the cockpit of Western
diplomacy. Trade agreements made in Constantinople,
unexceptionable as they may have been in their provision
for uniform customs duties and other equitable arrange-
ments, were of course not wholly effective in the remoter
provinces; here the foreign trader who most prospered
was he who bribed the local authorities most handsomely.
Thus, however regrettable political pressure harnessed
to economic interests may appear to a pious armchair
student of foreign affairs today, it was often directed
against corruption or abuse, and in any case the Western
nation that sat back in those pioneering days saw privileges
and prosperity pass to others.
In the Indian Ocean the French next came to share the
Dutch trade, but in the eighteenth century both were
eclipsed by the British in the race for the great market of
India. The East India Company, soon to become the gov-
ernment of India, now began to dominate Arabian waters;
it set about charting the coasts, putting down piracy (in
later times slavery and gunrunning, too) and planting
Indian trading communities, with political agents to pro-
tect them, on the Persian Gulf shores, where both make a
living to this day. British mechanical genius, then pre-
eminent in the world with inventions of railways, steam-
ships and telegraphs, prepared the way for further ex-
ploitation. On the high seas the British steamer came to
take a bigger share of the carrying trade at the expense
of the native dhow, and on the internal waterways of
[257]
THE ARABS
Iraq smaller British-owned vessels, through the personal
interest of King William and Parliament, obtained a con-
cession to ply for trade as they have continued to do down
to this day. It was enterprise such as this, going on the
world over, that laid the foundations of our foreign-
derived income, which is reflected in our present-day pros-
perity, naval power and diplomatic prestige.
From the middle of the last century the Ottomans, and
with them the Arabs, were brought into still closer political
contact with Britain through new canal and telegraph en-
terprises. A telegraph line was constructed by British en-
gineers, under Turkish auspices, linking up the Persian
Gulf with the Mediterranean, and the power of British
consular agents grew in a night. Whereas before they must
come, cap in hand, to the local authorities to beg trade
favours for their nationals, there was now direct and
instant touch with India, London and Constantinople, and
they found themselves armed with readier and firmer
answers to local obstacle-makers concerning the 'rights'
of traders, river navigators and even archaeologists. A
new kind of local friction arose from a new kind of local
balance of power. The native official did not like the for-
eign representative any better on this account, but he was
awed by the amazing efficiency of the political organiza-
tion behind him ; it was educative*
Of much wider political importance was the opening of
the Suez Canal in 1869, the work of French engineers, by
which Egypt and Turkey came to have a new significance
for Britain and India, Britain's need to protect the new
trade route to her greatest market, India the most val-
uable market in the world led her almost at once to es-
tablish a protectorate along a strip of southwest Arabian
coast immediately behind Aden, a fringe of Yemen terri-
[258]
RISE OF THE WEST
tory where Turkey was nominally suzerain. For Turkey,
too, the Arabian coasts came to have an added importance,
and she tightened her control where she had a footing
the Hijaz and the Yemen and extended control where
she had not, thus claiming suzerainty over Kuwait and
throwing troops into the mid-Persian Gulf littoral at Hasa
and Qatar astride Bahrain. In deference to British sus-
ceptibilities she did not press her cherished pretensions to
Bahrain; indeed, Turkey found herself everywhere
thwarted in the Persian Gulf by the older and well-
parapetted British-Indian entrenchments. Her tiny garri-
sons did, however, give her prestige with the two desert
principalities of South Nejd (Ibn Sa'ud) and North Nejd
(Ibn Rashid), and during the next half-century, down to
the Great War, each of these from time to time turned to
her in moments of internal weakness or from fear of the
other, promising subjection as the price of support. But
for Turkey these adventures did not pay, and her soldiers
had been driven from the Hasa province of the Persian
Gulf by Ibn Sa'ud a year before the Great War descended
upon her.
Among these new Western agencies it was railways,
however, that were destined to play greatest havoc with
Turkey's future. So backward were the Arab countries
under the Turks that up to the end of the century they
still possessed no railroad. This was not the fault of for-
eign railway magnates, for these in very early days had
formed plans of a railroad across Europe to India. A
similar scheme was revived in London in the middle of the
nineteenth century but again came to nought. In 1854
Lynch and Chesney, British pioneers of the Iraq river
steamer enterprise launched a more modest and practicable
plan for a short railway from the Mediterranean to the
THE ARABS
Euphrates, thence to link up with the river boats to the
Persian Gulf. Two years later capital of a million sterling
for the Syrian Trans-Desert Railway was oversubscribed
in the city of London. The Ottoman government were quite
favourably disposed and went to the length of under-
writing six per cent dividends and holding up the rival
concession for cutting the Suez Canal for which the French
had plans ready. The issue was decided by extraneous
affairs. The Indian Mutiny broke out, Britain required
certain concessions from the French in Egypt in connection
with the movement of British troops. The British railway
project was dropped, and the French canal project pro-
ceeded with. Had this railway been built the recent his-
tory of the Middle East might well have been different.
British influence in Constantinople would probably have
remained powerful despite Russia and German influence
been denied the chance of growing. Turkey would then
probably have escaped being drawn into the Great War,
in which case the Arab countries, Palestine, Syria and
Iraq, would have remained under Ottoman dominion,
possibly to this day. But the railway was not built, and
in the eighties British Influence in Turkey began to decline
under Mr Gladstone. The way was opened to Germany,
and she was soon at work building all Turkey's railways.
In 1885 the Balkan Railway was completed to Constanti-
nople ; during the last twelve years of the century German
engineers brought into existence the railway system of
Asia Minor; and early in the present century the Pilgrim
Railway down the western side of Arabia to Medina. (See
map, page 277.)
It was not local internal railways, however these in
political eyes were harmless enough but projects for a
strategic railway that came to have major interest for the
[260]
RISE OF THE WEST
great Western Powers. Round about the opening of the
present century these various projects, first the Russian
plan for a railway from Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf,
then the German scheme for a railway from Constanti-
nople to the Persian Gulf, had alarming significance for
Britain. Both of these powers were known to cherish East-
ern ambitions, and Britain as the one great Middle East
imperial Power conceived herself challenged. Russia lay
contiguous to Persia and Afghanistan in the north, so that
the land threat to India via the northwest frontier, to-
gether with this foreshadowed sea threat by way of the
Persian Gulf made a formidable combination. Since the
Crimean War Russia had, however, been engaged in
other tussles with Turkey, and the rumours of the Turkish
railway concession to the Russians proved, in the event,
to lack substance. The apprehension that it gave rise to,
however, led the government of India to seek a closer re-
lationship with Kuwait, the Arab port at the head of the
Persian Gulf the natural terminus for a strategic rail-
way where Turkish suzerainty had not been recognized,
and under an agreement then made the ruler undertook to
give no such concession to any foreign state.
Meanwhile Turkey had granted the more alarming
railway concession to Germany, and the fat was in the
fire. The future possibility of enemy submarine activities
In the Indian Ocean in time of war was a less real menace
than the threat to the Persian oil fields, which, as time
went on, were developing and eventually formed a main
source of Britain's oil supply. The interplay of interna-
tional politics in the Arab countries which these activities
involved was not lost upon the Arabs. They saw signs and
tokens that presaged a great war, a war with which their
own national destinies were to be bound up.
THE ARABS
These great contending forces of the West were nations.
Their mighty activities were inspired and sustained in the
name of nationalism. Western nationalism began to have
a curious fascination for the Arabs. What was at the bot-
tom of the political organization which seemed to have all
the solidarity of the tribe? It was a small, compact unit, a
homogeneous group speaking one common tongue. Despite
their common religion the Western nations were seen to
be each acutely conscious of its own interests, anxious to
maintain independent existence, zealous for its own pre-
eminence. This was not at all like the Arabs' own Middle
East tradition where Turks, Arabs, Kurds, etc., were
loosely grouped within an Islamic framework a hetero-
geneous collection of peoples speaking many tongues. True
their own Ottoman Empire was no longer held together
by religion but by the sword, though a general attitude of
mind that encouraged Moslem unity was a legacy of its
tradition. The caliphate, however, in its ideological form,
had perished in the wars wherein Moslems fought Mos-
lems for dynastic power, when the empire split into frag-
ments and two or three caliphs could rule in different parts
of the world at the same time. A phase of temporal rule
had come. He was the ruler who could impose his will.
'The sovereign has a right to govern/ declared the four-
teenth-century Moslem jurist, Ibn Jama' ah of Damascus,
'until another and stronger shall oust him from power, and
rule in his stead. The latter will rule by the same title and
will have to be acknowledged on the same grounds.' 20 *
Tradition did not require that the blood of the rulers
should be that of the people. It was a state of things where
It was politically acceptable to render unto Caesar the
things that are Csesar's. The realism of the age recognized
that authority fundamentally and of right rests on force.
[262]
RISE OF THE WEST
The late Western conception of the rights of nations
to independent existence as being based on the homo-
geneous cultural group speaking one tongue was thus out-
side the Middle East tradition. In the East the traditional
penalties of challenging him who held the sceptre did not
encourage the growth of political self-consciousness among
minority elements, much less of separatist movements. The
imperial Islamic tradition was wider than nationalism,
compelling men of diverse race and tongue into a com-
mon hegemony; thus the early triumph of Middle East
civilization under the Turks had placed Arabs, Armenians,
Assyrians, Kurds, Bulgars, Greeks and the rest under the
caliphs of Constantinople, and none at first wished or
dared to contest their authority.
In the West, on the other hand, individual nations de-
veloped their political institutions out of their inner con-
sciousness, shaped by their history, their literature, their
temper, their economic advantage. Such groups, geo-
graphically and ethnically compact, developed and gained
strength. Their population increased, and to support them-
selves they must expand and in later times find ever fresh
outlets for their manufactures and commerce. The West-
ern nations ranged out and mastered the world the
Americas, India, Australasia, Africa and even the Ot-
toman Empire itself was not free from their penetrating
enterprises. By the late eighteenth century the Turks were
having to look to their laurels and in the early nineteenth 1
were organizing their army on the Prussian model; they
were being driven, in order to survive, to adopt the meth-
ods of a modern world that was enveloping them* And so
Professor Temperley in his work England and the Near East the
Crimea has some new references to the caliphate in the nineteenth cen-
tury. 37 *
[263]
THE ARABS
with other aspects of the empire's political life. 'The re-
formers/ says Professor Gibb, 'were never given a fair
chance . , the highest Authorities (i.e. Sultans and reli-
gious leaders) were unwilling to do anything which might
alienate from them the support of the mass of Moslem
opinion. Did they desire to abolish slavery the Sacred
Law of Islam recognizes it. Did they desire to give equality
of status to all citizens the Law insists on the political
subordination of non-Moslems. Did they desire to reform
the administration of justice the Law will not tolerate
any code other than itself. Did they desire to create parli-
amentary institutions the Law knows nothing of such and
admits no right of legislation. And so on; on every point
the reformers were met with a negative in the name of
the Divine Ordinances of Islam.' 31 *
As time went on, however, both the army and the ad-
ministration had to be brought more into line with West-
ern practice. But the rigid self-discipline which was at
the bottom of the Western technique was largely wanting
in the East. What was natural and appropriate in the
West was alien in the East. Still the wealth, the power, the
prestige, the achievements of the West continued to apply
the spur. Western results argued in favour of the West.
Western political principles, it seemed, must be right;
hence nationalism became a contagion. Greece, Roumania,
Bulgaria, Albania and other countries in Europe one by
one had been able to throw off their Ottoman fetters.
Nationalism spread into Asia. As the empire had crum-
bled In Europe under its influence, so in Asia it could only
lead to disintegration. The first Asiatic groups to be af-
fected were the Christian minorities of Armenia and else-
where who were conscious of Near East rather than Mid-
dle East traditions. In her treatment of these minorities
RISE OF THE WEST
Turkey had little to fear from her European neighbours,
and her resistance to their aspirations, or their seditious
activities, took the form of massacres. The conventional
view that the Turkish massacres were primarily religious
seems to have been too lightly accepted in the past. It is
more probable that at root they were political (despite
the close identity between religion and politics in the Is-
lamic tradition). This at least is suggested by Turkey's
own conciliatory policy in the early days. Indeed for the
first two and a half centuries of Ottoman rule, before
nationalism raised its head and made the Turks feel inse-
cure, they had shown considerable tolerance and allowed
minorities to enjoy a commendable measure of autonomy
under a loose medieval form of government. They never
forced Islam on their newly acquired subjects, though
in traditional Moslem style they regarded Christians as
an inferior caste. Most of their Balkan possessions
Bosnia, Bulgaria, Albania (Hungary excepted) em-
braced of their own free will the faith of the dominant
race, and if later they expelled the Turks and reverted to
Christianity they did so under Western influence and with
Western military support. It was the later Turkey, driven
by force of circumstances to resist weakness within her-
self, that met separatist tendencies with abominable mas-
sacres.
As we have seen, in the earliest times Christian 'religious
minorities' enjoyed 'protection* within the Islamic state so
long as they were submissive and paid a small supertax.
But the Middle East tradition had a different way with
'political minorities*, a hard way for treason against the
state. Under political absolutism minorities claiming to be
different and opposed were not as respectable as they are
in Western democratic states. Public opinion expected
[265]
THE ARABS
strong action and applauded resolute men. The minority,
flaunting its racial and religious differences, was regarded
as asking for extirpation. The recent Iraqi massacre of
Assyrians to the Iraqis the Assyrians were a militant
and extremely provocative minority is in some respects
in the same political tradition. If England and Ireland had
formed parts of a Middle East civilization instead of
Western civilization the world would have had reason to
expect some similar reactions. This is in no sense said as
an argument for or against the spread of Western
nationalism, which may well be as inevitable as the spread
of taste or culture or disease. But its Western democratic
forms that are taken for granted by untravelled West-
erners do not form part of the common consciousness in
the Middle East, nor do they appeal to the governing
class where affection for strong and just and benevolent
personal dictatorship is more in the historical tradition.
If the Western democrat seeks with keen devotion the
universal acceptance of his political deities, he should, if
he abjures the sword, learn to be patient.
The spread of Western nationalism to the Arab coun-
tries under the Turks properly belongs to the present
century, when the small literate class became genuinely
converted but not the agricultural masses. The latter
in many provinces, notably those of Iraq, had reverted
to a social culture not much in advance of the deserts and
were not nationally minded. The former the townsfolk
retaining something of their historic medieval traditions,
and educated in Turkish-speaking schools had on the
other hand more in common with the Turks of the ruling
class, their Sunni coreligionists, than with their own kith
and kin who followed the plough and the Persian sectaries.
Iraq, to take as an example the Turkish-administered
[266]
RISE OF THE WEST
Arab country I learned to know well, had this cultural di-
vision between the urban dwellers and tribally minded
fellahin.
To the Arab townsman the Turk was no foreign tyrant.
The Ottoman Empire was not narrowly Turkish in spirit ;
it was a loosely administered hegemony of diverse prov-
inces, and if the local governor and the local general and
the like were appointed from Constantinople, they were
by no means always of Turkish blood* Arabs generally
from Syria Kurds and even Cretans came, indifferently
with Turks, to administer the provinces of Iraq.
The Turks, till recent times tribesmen themselves,
were by no means inexpert handlers of the Arab tribes-
man either. They understood, if they no longer sympa-
thized with, the wayward point of view that resented any
close government control; their own careless medieval
methods were indeed well suited to the taste of the tribes.
These enjoyed much freedom from authority, and in the
early days authority was exercised through their own local
aristocracy, such as the Kurdish aghas In the north or the
Sa'adun amirs in the south.
It was when the Turks began to 'improve* their ad-
ministrative machine on Western lines and with Western
applause that the old personal touch was lost and they
grew less popular. They had come to think with the
West that an efficient administrative machine was an
effective substitute for personal rule. The fez was to re-
place the turban, the literate townsman to be promoted at
the expense of the local aristocrat. But the conditions
necessary for a Western regime were wanting. The bulk
of the population were tribesmen and not impressed by
literacy nor attracted by bureaucrats. If they had a sense
of the well-being of their tribe or their area they lacked a
[267]
THE ARABS
sense of national public weal. Threat of closer control only
hardened their opposition, and under the influence of their
Shi'a divines they found religious justification for disputing
the claims of Sunni caliphs. The demand on them for in-
creased taxes only intensified their opposition to paying
taxes at all. If they wanted water for their rice fields why
shouldn't they cut canals? And what if this did flood high-
ways? Food was an older and greater consideration for
them than wheeled traffic, for which, indeed, they had no
need at all.
The agents of Ottoman authority were the Arab towns-
men, fit only, so the tribesmen thought, to scribble at their
taxes. This local official class had greatly deteriorated
since the old days. It, too, was deficient in the sense of
public service, and chiefly preoccupied with the need of
making a precarious living. It, too, identified the public
good with the good of its own class. Flooding public high-
ways was not to be tolerated. And did not evasion of taxes
prove that the tribesmen were enemies of the state ?
In the year 1869 came Midhat Pasha, a famous Turkish
wall, to Baghdad, determined to break the tribes once for
all. To this end he introduced an ingenious land reform
which conferred a form of proprietary right on the indi-
vidual members of the tribe, a hereditary lease, on easy
terms, calculated to wean tribesmen from local allegiances.
Though partly effective, and enduring to this day, its suc-
cess was hindered by Midhat's less judicious measures to
conscript the tribes. Hence those who might have been
coaxed into a closer allegiance by the seductive appeal of
property in land must keep their distance to avoid being
whipped off to force a neighbour's submission to govern-
ment's revenue demands or lured away to fight the Rus-
sians, whoever they might be !
RISE OF THE WEST
The methods by which the Turks made their higher
appointments were no more promising of success than
were the ethical standards of local subordinate employees.
Corruption ran from top to bottom. The very exalted,
such as governors, bought their appointments in Con-
stantinople, usually on a short-term lease, and came to
the Arab provinces to make the investment profitable.
Taxation was locally auctioned to tax farmers, who also
must make good. The local subordinate Arab official re-
ceived inadequate and irregular pay and restored to tak-
ing bribes. The police and local garrison, their uniform
shabby, their pay often in arrears, must be nimble with
their muskets these often of various pattern to bully
and extort a living. Customs officials, -who in theory took
an eight per cent tax, were quite ready to reduce the bur-
den to the importer in accordance with the size of the
consideration passed under the table. In short there was
wanting that public spirit in the service of the state which
springs from a sense of personal security and from loyalty
to clean and proud traditions, features which made
bureaucratic government safe in the West. Thus West-
ern panaceas compounded in a Turco-Arab dispensary
brought little health to the extremities of the sick man of
Europe. This is not to suggest that Turkish rule gave
grounds for strong local dissatisfaction. It was too light
to be irksome. If government is a necessary evil, a feeble
evil is better than a virile one ; in the measure of its weak-
ness and inefficiency it was tolerable to the tribesmen; the
taxpayer had the means of lightening his burden by his
own ingenuity; the petty Arab official was not unhappy
under a system which was the only one he understood.
Ottoman authority varied not only from decade to de-
cade with the personality of the wali, but within the
[269]
THE ARABS
country from town to town and from tribe to tribe. There
was control in the towns, a light hand on the surround-
ing tribes, a faint supervision often vanishing altogether
among remote marsh Arabs. Thus my own immediate
postwar district of the Middle Gharraf (the ancient
Lagash), midway between Tigris and Euphrates, had
ceased to be administered by the Turks ten years before
the war because of their inability to collect revenues, and
three of my Turkish predecessors, who were too intent
on revenue collection, had been murdered. Taxation was
not uniform in Arab provinces of the Iraq, but then it
never had been, and nobody expected it to be. The area
under control must pay virtually a dozen times the
amount that could be wheedled out of the inaccessible
tribes who indeed often refused to pay anything. Arrears
mounted up, and then would come a time when the sum
owing must either weakly be abandoned on grounds of
political expediency or an attempt be made at collection
by means of a punitive column. Under the Turks the de-
ciding factor was a simple arithmetical sum, on which
side of the profit and loss account was a balance to be
expected. The effect on public morality was scarcely salu-
tary.
The administration of the law was various. The tribes
were left to their ancient canons or their Shi'a sanctions ;
the Ottoman law of the towns, based largely on the
Napoleonic code, was administered by judge or qadhi.
Justice could usually be bought and sold. Yet however
much illicit influence and bribery were brought to bear,
the tendency was nearly always towards getting the
prisoner off. There was humanity in it. Custom allowed
the relatives of the prisoner to bring him his meals,
which the underpaid jailer was pleased to share, a practice
[270]
RISE OF THE WEST
that encouraged friendly relations and was suited to the
free and easy ways of the people; while quarantine
officials, where these existed, were never so vexatiously
efficient as to stand in the way of the truly understanding.
But in the present century a generation of Arabs was
growing up dissatisfied with the Turkish connection.
Under the influence of Western thought, achievement, ex-
ample, the Arab intelligentsia was becoming growingly
aware of the poverty and backwardness of their native
lands under the Turks and saw before their eyes the grow-
ing prosperity of Egypt, under Western guidance. The
official elements among them had tried loyally to co-
operate in the reform policy of the Committee of Union
and Progress which promised so much and from which
they at first had hopes of greater autonomy, but when
the young Turks, in the strength derived from association
with Germany, seemed to steer an opposite course, the
Arabs of Iraq fell more and more away. They had their
own proud Umaiyyad and Abbasid traditions to inspire
them.
But these politically minded Arabs were but a tiny frac-
tion of the people. The mass of the f ellahin were illiterate
and apathetic to nationalist sentiment. They had drifted
back to a rude tribal culture, wanted no government at all
bigger than their tribal unit. Most of them would have
wished above all to be left alone, free from any bureau-
cratic control including that of the official class of their
own urban kinsmen. To the mass of the Shi'a tribesmen
of Iraq, as indeed to any other Arab tribesmen, the con-
stitutional reforms of Turkey, or any other constitutional
reforms for that matter, gave them nothing that they
needed or wanted.
Westernization, therefore, in effect weakened Turkey
[271]
THE ARABS
in her Arab dominions. Turkey Westernized ceased to
be acceptable to the Arab masses. Turkey, reeling under
successive blows of the Balkan and Italian wars, ceased
to hold its prestige with the Arab urban communities.
These began to talk of Arab nationalism, to dream of
freedom from the Turkish yoke.
[272]
Part Four
REVIVAL
CHAPTER XI
The Arabs and the World War
THE YEAR 1914 the Arabs of Syria, Palestine and
Iraq and of the western provinces of the Arabian penin-
sula, the Hijaz, and, in a lesser degree, the Yemen, were
under Turkish dominion. To all these lands Constanti-
nople sent garrisons, to most of them viceroys and gover-
nors too. In the Ottoman army Arab soldiers and officers
served side by side with Turks, Kurds and other repre-
sentatives of the empire. The Arab officer class, educated
in Turkish schools, served in military and civil capacities
on the same terms as the Turks. There was no derogating
distinction, as with Indians under the British raj in con-
temporary India, nothing to prevent the Arab from rising
to the highest rank in the Ottoman services; though up
to the war the Turks had resisted the Syrian demand that
Arabic should be admitted as an official language along
with Turkish. Arabs married Turkish wives Sharif, later
King, Husain of Mecca himself had a Turkish wife
Arabs were sent with Turks to German military staff col-
leges. Like army officers in any other army they took an
oath of allegiance to their ruling sovereign the Turkish
[275]
THE ARABS
sultan, and thus when war broke out, they found them-
selves fighting in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and Palestine
on the side of the Turks against the Allies.
But for many of them their heart was not in it. Their
outlook had been affected by Western liberalism. They
would have preferred to think of themselves as Arab
patriots rather than Ottoman subjects. Their kith and
kin at home in Syria and Iraq were of the same mind, and
though these formed a small fraction of the Arab in-
habitants they were the intellectual and vocal element.
Here was a powder magazine within the Turkish terri-
tories ready to be fired by the war in which these politically
minded Arabs saw their chance of flinging off the Turkish
yoke. Secret Arab societies formed with such an object
existed in the cities, as well as literary and scientific
societies, which, while not secret, brought men together
whose political aspirations doubtless trended the same
way the Arab Committee, the Arts Club and the Com-
mittee of the Covenant. With war joined, these Arabs
could only expect to achieve their ends if Turkey were de-
feated.
The Turks were no tyrannous masters, however, to be
got rid of at any price. Apart from their own easygoing
ineffectiveness, the Turks in the Arab countries were
crippled both in a financial and political sense. Their wars
had led them to mortgage certain items of revenue such
as fisheries, liquor, salt, stamps, the sale of tobacco. In
Palestine they had conceded a form of foreign protector-
ate of the holy places from their earliest occupation.
Capitulations, providing for the legal rights of Chris-
tian powers to try their own nationals in their own courts,
and other extraterritorial rights which were in origin
a lazy arrangement of the Turks to simplify their rela-
[276]
ARAB STATES
TURKISH DOMUflW
8EFORTJiEREAT WAR
[277]
THE ARABS
tions with Genoese and Venetian traders and the like,
grew to be another source of political weakness as the
Western Powers arose to inherit the rights and exploit
them to the fulL And now for a century Turkey grew still
weaker from the undermining effects of Western nation-
alistic doctrinairism.
Jewry, too, had already conceived an ardent desire
to possess Palestine. The Jew minorities of the world,
scattered throughout fifty nations of the earth, without
a country, a government or a flag to call their own, had,
like the Arabs, become nationalists and started their
movement of Zionism. Indeed, at the first Zionist Congress
Dr Herzl had prophesied the World War and said, 'It
may be that Turkey will refuse or be unable to understand
us. This will not discourage us. We shall seek other means
to accomplish our ends.'
The French enjoyed a special position in the Turkish
territories. They were the acknowledged protectors of
Catholic Christian communities, so that Syria with its
predominantly Catholic seaboard of the Lebanon had a
special interest for France. From crusading times on
through Napoleon's adventures there a French footing
in the eastern Mediterranean was an axiom of their
policy. French influence had always been stronger in
Syria than that of any other European power. French was
the most popular foreign language taught in Syrian
schools; French hospitals and French schools had long
flourished.
But Germany, already strongest of all powers in Con-
stantinople circles, was attaining growing prestige in the
Arab countries, her great engineering skill displaying
itself in Turkey's railways, her great project, which
threatened the British position in the Persian Gulf, re-
[278]
THE ARABS AND THE WORLD WAR
inforcing the mighty name she had as the first military
power in Europe. Moreover, Germany had given diplo-
matic support to Turkey in all her recent wars, had showed
a steady indifference to Turkey's treatment of her subject
populations, had followed that close friendship with the
Turks which foreshadowed alliance in time of war.
British interests in the Arab countries were most con-
siderable in the Persian Gulf and at one or two strategic
points on the Arabian coasts. Aden, the rocky furnace
commanding the entrance to the Red Sea, was a British
protectorate; Bahrain, looking across the Gulf to our
Persian oil fields, was 'protected territory' ; and Muscat,
facing India, a cherished ally, though in the eyes of Arab
pirates, gunrunners, and slave dealers a sort of maritime
Scotland Yard, and perhaps no more popular on that ac-
count.
In Turkey any kindly sentiment towards Britain, dating
from Crimean associations, had waned before a later
Gladstonian attitude, which, during the Balkan Wars,
ranged our sympathies on the side of Turkey's Christian
antagonists. When Turkey did try to put her house in
order Europe, as a whole, had not been conspicuously
helpful. Austria and Bulgaria repudiated her suzerainty
of Bosnia-Herzegovina; Italy invaded Turkish north
Africa and took Tripoli ; and though Britain withheld her
hand in Egypt and France maintained a benign neu-
trality, Germany was the only power who openly cherished
her. 26 *
When the Great War came the matter of moment In
the British-Arabo-Turkish relationship was the fact that
the sultan of Turkey was the nominal head of orthodox
Islam and master of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina,
while Britain was the greatest Moslem power. In India
[279]
THE ARABS
alone, British Indian Moslem subjects outnumbered all
the Turks and Arabs the world over. To the Sunnis among
these a large majority the sultan of Turkey, as caliph,
could declare jihad, or holy war, 1 upon the infidel, and even
among Shi'as there was a considerable sentiment In favour
of Turkey as the one great Islamic power. Much of the
best fighting material in India was recruited into the Indian
army from the Moslem northwest. This explains why
British officials, raised in the Indian school and faced
with the possibilities of Indian upheaval, were tradition-
ally pro-Turk, or, at least, why they looked askance when
prewar governments at home inclined to sympathize with
any and every adversary of Turkey.
Just before the outbreak of the war the British sirdar
in Egypt was Lord Kitchener. He had come from India,
where he had served as commander-in-chief under Curzon
and was therefore alive to caliphate influence among
Indian Moslems. He had foreseen that if Turkey were
ranged against Britain, as she must be as the ally of
Germany, there would be unrest and probably Moslem
upheaval in India. He therefore saw political advantage
in the Arab movement towards independence. In any
case Arab co-operation would be clearly useful as a means
of discouraging jihad in India and of thwarting German
ambitions in the Middle East. The holy places of Islam,
where Indians came on annual pilgrimages, had a special
significance in the former connection, and hence Kitchener
and their keeper, the Sharif Husain, were in touch before
J The original meaning of the word seems to have been 'striving*, i.e.,
'striving after good.' It can mean fighting in defence of freedom of thought
and on behalf of the oppressed. As a military weapon for political ends it
is not today regarded by enlightened Arabs as an Islamic institution,
though as such a weapon it has been traditionally met with, even in the
recent war.
[280]
THE ARABS AND THE WORLD WAR
Turkey had openly joined her fortunes with those of
Germany. 2
In the immediately preceding years Turkey, emboldened
by her alliance with the first military power in Europe, had
stiffened in her attitude towards the Arabs. Arabian
princes had in places been called upon to acknowledge
Turkish suzerainty afresh, Turkish troops had been sent
to the Yemen, and the sharif of Mecca had for the first
time been told he must introduce conscription into the
Hijaz. Between the sharif and the Turks there was little
love lost. He had long desired an opportunity to shake
off their mastery. His sons were educated princes who,
having spent some of their youth in Constantinople, had
met everyone who mattered among the Arabs in Turkey,
Syria and Egypt ; they were in sympathy with the Arab
nationalist movement and personae gratae with its lead-
ers. Thus Sharif Husain became the spokesman of the
Arab nationalist movement the spokesman of a move-
ment that now primarily concerned not Arabia itself but
the Arab countries outside. The 'heart of Arabia' under
Ibn Sa'ud had already won its freedom from Turkish
influence by its own efforts. The new Arab revolt was
thus not the revolt of Arabia so much as the revolt of the
Arabs ; it drew much of its political inspiration from the
Turcofied Arab countries without, and if sackfuls of
'golden horsemen of St George' brought needy Hijazi
tribesmen to its banner, the great bulk of peninsular
2 An interview between Lord Kitchener and the Amir Abdullah, the
sharif s second son and at that time a Turkish deputy, took place in
Cairo in February, 1914. I am informed by Professor Harold Temperley
and Dr G. P. Gooch, editors of British Documents on the Origins of the
War, that an account of this interview by Lord Kitchener himself and
other relevant material will appear in Vol. X, Part II, shortly to be pub-
lished. 38 *
[281]
THE ARABS
Arabia remained indifferent to its activities, while Arabia's
greatest figure, Ibn Sa'ud, was at the time hostile to its
Hashimite leaders on old and personal grounds. Had
the Arab Revolt been a spontaneous Arabian movement
Sharif Husain would scarcely have been the acceptable
leader, even with the lure of gold and arms, poured forth
like water to tribesmen fulsomely appreciative of them.
Sharif Husain was told he could count on British sup-
port only if and when Turkey joined the Central Powers
in the field, for Britain, up to the last moment, was using
her efforts to keep Turkey out of the war by promising
recognition of Turkey's territorial integrity, and this, of
course, included her Arab possessions. When the Turks
had come in Husain did not at first move. He had many
things to consider. Arabs of known nationalist sympathies
were fighting on the Turkish side and would continue to
do so until they could be taken prisoner and change their
allegiance ; others were living behind the Turkish lines and
openly declared Arab revolt would bring suspicion upon
them if not worse. Also it was by no means clear that
the Allies would win the war and so be able to fulfil Arab
aspirations, and the Arabs never quite lost belief in the
invincible might of the German army. Sharif Husain in
Mecca was able to save his face with the Turks by making
a pretence of complying with their conscription measure
and by affording protection to some of the crew of the
shipwrecked German raider Emden. The summer of 1915
came and saw the Turks to the south make an abortive at*
tack on Aden from the Yemen.
In the north a challenge was now thrown down to
the Arabs. The Turks ruthlessly set about attempting to
exterminate Arab nationalism in Syria, its fountainhead.
Suspected Arab patriots were taken out and hanged as
[282]
THE ARABS AND THE WORLD WAR
traitors, and a regular reign of terror was instituted.
This inspired Arab loathing for the Turks everywhere.
Fear spread and dismay and a thirst to be revenged ; and
the Arab refugees from Syria came to Mecca to implore
Sharif Husain to throw in his lot with the Allies and raise
revolt in the name of Arab independence.
Arab intervention at this stage had less value to the
Allies than it would have had a year before, and the
sharif s terms concerning the future of Syria, Iraq and
Palestine were not acceptable. He demanded that these
Arab territories should be recognized as an Arab kingdom.
Britain, already in negotiation with France and other
Allies who had prewar interests in Turkish territories, re-
plied, setting forth qualifications both in the scope of the
area concerned and in the degree of administrative free-
dom she deemed prudent. Negotiations continued, and by
the early part of 1916 the sharif, on behalf of the Arab
nationalist movement, felt he had reached a sufficient
measure of agreement. 3 But he was not as yet prepared for
intervention and suggested a wait of six months or so.
The Arab Revolt was, however, precipitated a few months
later, when Turkish troops started arriving by the Pilgrim
Railway to reinforce the garrison of Medina. To dally
might have invited the same tragic fate as had befallen
Arab patriots in Syria. The sharif's two sons, the amirs
Faisal and Abdullah, were already impatient of delay,
and they now cut the railway north of Medina to start
the Arab Revolt, the people of Mecca having already taken
an oath of allegiance. Thus the sharif joined the Allies
without obtaining guarantees about French claims in Syria ;
in ignorance, necessarily, of later Zionist commitments in
Palestine.
'For Macmahon's letter of October 24, 1915, see Philby, Arabia, p. 242.
[283]
THE ARABS
The military value of the Arab Revolt led so gallantly
by his son, the Amir Faisal and T. E. Lawrence, won the
unstinted praise of our famous general, that most noble
of men, the late Lord Allenby. And however much the
postwar activities of the revolt movement made for un-
rest and agitation, to our acute discomfort in Mesopo-
tamia, the immediate political influence of the revolt, with
which we are here more concerned, is not in doubt. When
Arabs fought Turks for Arab independence the patriotic
issue must have had considerable effect on Arabs behind
the Turkish lines in Syria, through which British troops
must later advance, while the repudiation of the Turkish
caliphate by the sharif of Mecca, descendant of the
Prophet, living head of the Prophet's tribe, and keeper of
the holy places, had, at the time, an effect on Indian
opinion which could not be overestimated.
Britain conducted two separate military campaigns
against the Turks in the Arab countries, a western one in
Palestine and Syria operated from Egypt, an eastern
one in Iraq operated from India. The Arab revolters
were a guerilla force who came to co-operate on the
desert flank in the western campaign of Allenby's which
drove the Turks out of Syria and Palestine. 4 They took
*As regards military strength and the cost of the Arab Revolt, which was
borne by the British exchequer, I owe the following figures, necessarily
approximate, to the kindness of Captain Liddell Hart In the early part of
the Hijaz campaign the Arabs had a nominal fifty thousand men who
might have been tapped, and their three 'armies' had a nominal total of
about sixteen thousand. In the advance to Wejh, Faisal's army numbered
just over ten thousand, but this was a very fluctuating quantity, and most
of the British officers who took part are convinced that the totals given
them were actually exaggerated. In the later stages of the campaign in
the north the Arab tribal forces were similarly an uncertain and fluctuating
quantity, simply gathering for some particular expedition in numbers that
sometimes reached a few thousand, but were more often only a few
hundred. The only consistent part of the Arab strength was the Arab
Tegular force which was raised after the revolt broke out. The bulk of this
[284]
THE ARABS AND THE WORLD WAR
no part in the eastern campaign of the Mesopotamian Ex-
peditionary Force which drove the Turks out of Iraq.
Although less publicity is reserved for this latter Arab
theatre of war, a campaign in which the Indian army took
a large and loyal part, its scope was actually bigger than
the South African war. The successful prosecution of these
two campaigns freed the Arab countries from the Turkish
yoke, and when the war ended British armies occupied the
enemy territories, and provisional military administra-
tions directed local affairs*
The problem of the future government of these Arab
territories had now to be faced. There were many inter-
ests to be considered. It was not possible to hand the
territories over to the Arabs, even if that had been con-
sidered desirable. There had been strong foreign interests
under the Turks as we have seen, and these in 1916 had
formed the subject of secret agreement between the pow-
was shifted up to Aqaba in August, 1917, and it then comprised eighteen
hundred men. This was somewhat increased by 1918, when it consisted of
a brigade of infantry, a battalion of camel corps and about eight guns. By
the middle of 1918 the total Arab regular forces, counting those under
Faisal and also the further forces raised by AH and Abdullah in the Hijaz,
amounted to about ten thousand men. But only a small number of these was
available at any time for offensive operations at a distance from their base.
Thus, when the decisive campaign was launched in September, 1918, the
striking forces moved up north to Azraq for this totalled a little under six
hundred picked men. It was reinforced by about two thousand picked
tribesmen.
The total cost to the imperial exchequer of the Arab Revolt is thought
to have been in the neighbourhood of 4,000,000 in gold, of which rather
more than half came back in purchases of food* and clothing. Of this
Lawrence himself was given a fund of 200,000 by Allenby after the latter*s
arrival in 1917, which was increased to 500,000 by the time Damascus was
reached; there was a balance of 10,000 remaining at the end. It is, of
course, impossible to estimate the cost of weapons and personnel lent to
the Arab forces, but in any case it represented only an inconsiderable frac-
tion of that of the theatre of war of die Egyptian Expeditionary Force as a
whole. The actual subsidy to the Arabs is thought to have been about
1,000,000.
[285]
THE ARABS
ers principally concerned. By this agreement (Sykes-Picot)
Britain, France and Russia had mutually agreed upon
spheres of influence.
Zionist aspirations complicated the issue as regards
Palestine. During the course of the war the Foreign
Offices of the Allied Powers had been approached by
Zionist organizations concerning the future of Palestine,
to which they advanced claims. On the Palestine front it-
self, a British-Hebrew battalion, known euphemistically
as the Jordan Highlanders, had fought loyally, and Jews
played their parts on other fronts; while a considerable
military contribution was made by a distinguished Jewish
scientist in the form of an invention of a cheap high ex-
plosive. This scientist, Dr Weizmann, a keen Zionist, too,
pleaded his nation's cause to a grateful British prime
minister. The British War Cabinet became persuaded of
the deserving nature of Zionism, and Lord Balfour, the
then British foreign secretary, expressed this official view
in November, 1917, in a letter to Lord Rothschild, a let-
ter which has come to be known and hated in Arab circles
as the Balfour Declaration. It read :
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His
Majesty's Government, the following Declaration of sympathy with
Jewish aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by
the Cabinet.
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment
in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use
their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object,
it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may
prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non- Jewish com-
munities in Palestine, or of the rights and political status enjoyed by
Jews in any other country.
I shall be glad if you will bring this Declaration to the knowledge
of the Zionist Federation. A. J. BALFOUR
[286]
THE ARABS AND THE WORLD WAR
The United States, French and Italian governments
endorsed this action, and the League of Nations approved,
four years later, of the establishment of a national home
for the Jews in Palestine on these conditions.
America had joined the Allies halfway through the
war, and her powerful and decisive contributions entitled
her spokesman, President Wilson, to a strong voice In
the matter of peace terms. America favoured the maxi-
mum liberty of the small nations, favoured universal self-
government and a policy of multinationalism. As she was
a vast country, rich to repletion from her own ever-
expanding home markets brought about under liberal
immigration laws, she was less understanding of the
traditional jealousies of her allies small, close-knit in-
dustrial nations for overseas spheres of influence, in
much the same way, perhaps, as Britons today, with a
great empire and feeling no need for fresh territory, are
impatient of the claims of Italy or Germany for space in
Africa. The rights of small nations to independent exist-
ence, the promotion of nationalism, based on self-
determination, found its most powerful champions in
America, and this doubtless had its influence on Allied
counsels. At the conclusion of the war, November, 1918,
an Anglo-French Declaration was issued which ran :
The end aimed at by France and Great Britain is the complete
and final enfranchisement of the people so long oppressed by the
Turks, and the establishment of National Governments and Ad-
ministrations drawing their authority from the initiative and free
choice of the native populations. . . . Far from wishing to impose
upon the populations any particular institutions the Allies have no
other desire than to assure by their support and active assistance
the normal functioning of the Governments and Administrations
which the populations have freely given themselves.
[287]
THE ARABS
The 'support and active assistance' Britain and France
envisaged was administrative advice and the garrisoning
of the regions covered by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but
the Arab leaders considered this agreement it had come
to light in Russia following the revolution as incom-
patible in spirit with war promises to the Arabs, while the
Balfour Declaration was even more irreconcilable with
the new declaration of Allied aims. The position, all very
confused, was regularized by a new political principle, a
contribution of President Wilson, known as the manda-
tory system. By this device the Powers were to have their
spheres of influence, but so devoid of advantage as to
ensure the ultimate rights of native populations. The
mandate was designed to prevent the sphere of influence
becoming an old-time veiled protectorate. A League of
Nations was envisaged, under whose authority the man-
date was juridically conferred on some great power, to
guide and assist the young and backward state until such
time as it could stand on its own feet. It would then be-
come free and sovereign and able to join the League as a
member, and the mandatory connection would auto-
matically end.
These principles differentiated the mandatory system
from the old colonial system or even the protectorate.
1. The mandatory Power must administer the territory as trus-
tee solely in the interest of its ward and share on equal terms with
other members of the League whatever economic or commercial
opportunities there were.
2. It must be a temporary arrangement whose ultimate aim was
emancipation and independence of the territory.
3. The mandatory was to be answerable not to its own con-
science, but to the public opinion of the world before the bar of the
League of Nations.
[288]
THE ARABS AND THE WORLD WAR
The historic interests of France and Britain in the
Middle East, the major share borne by British armies
in the two campaigns which freed the Arab territories
from the Turks, namely about fifty thousand battle cas-
ualties in Palestine and Syria and eighty thousand in Meso-
potamia (Iraq) 5 marked these two Powers as the natural
mandatories. But the political idealism of the times gave
rise, both in Peace Conference circles and in Syria itself,
to the notion that the Arabs could choose their own manda-
tory. A new kind of history was to begin. French interests
from crusade times onwards could be set aside as though
France didn't matter and 'history is all bunk/ The Arab
nationalist leaders declined to recognize a French man-
date for Syria or, indeed, have any dealings with the
French, pointing out that their war negotiations had been
with Britain, and Britain must satisfy Arab national as-
pirations. The Arab revolters now revolted against the
French (the British army of occupation having evacuated
Syria in favour of France in accordance with agreement).
Anglo-French relations became strained as postwar events
then taking place in Turkey showed, for France supposed
that Lawrence and the British officers attached to the
Arab Revolt movement were at the bottom of Arab
opposition to them.
The French landed an army in Syria and expelled the
Amir Faisal, who thereupon fled to London. In the same
year, partly under the inspiration of members of the
Arab Revolt, an Arab rebellion took place in Iraq directed
against the local British administration. While the French
resisted Arab demands in Syria, the British followed a con-
B British figures, including disease casualties, for Mesopotamia alone,
were: killed 14,814, prisoners of war and missing 13,494* wounded 51,386,
dead of disease 12,807=92,501.
[289]
THE ARABS
ciliatory policy in Iraq. The Amir Faisal was allowed to
offer himself for the throne of Iraq and was, with British
support, accepted by the inhabitants, and the administra-
tion was Arabized.
Legally the country was still enemy-occupied territory,
for the Turks did not ratify a peace treaty recognizing
Iraq's independence till 1923, i.e. five years after the war
ended. Its real independence, moreover, could only be
assured by recognition of its other neighbours, and at
first neither Persia in the east nor Ibn Sa'ud in the south
was disposed to recognize the new Arab regime. The
mandatory used its good offices to bring about this end,
though its task was rendered more onerous and thankless
by the internal situation, for, if the mandate was to live
up to the moral standards behind its design, not only
must the mandatory guide, but the mandated must ac-
cept guidance. But Arab official elements in Iraq, like
those in Syria, did not consider mandatory guidance neces-
sary; they preferred to be untrammelled. They held that
they were quite competent to manage their own affairs and
were morally entitled to release from an enforced status
of tutelage. Meanwhile Britain, as mandatory, had laid
the foundations of a clean, progressive and well-ordered
administration under two brilliant servants of the govern-
ment of India, Sir Percy Cox and Sir Arnold Wilson.
Subsequently, when Iraq's neighbours recognized the
new experiment of Arab king, Arab parliament and a
constitutional government, Britain found it expedient to
recommend to the League the abrogation of the mandate
and the election of Iraq to membership of the League as
a sovereign state (October, 1932).
France, after attempting at first to follow a different
course in Syria by tightening control under a large army
[290]
THE AMIR (LATER KING) FAISAL.
(By courtesy of Mr Lowell Thomas)
THE ARABS AND THE WORLD WAR
of occupation, has lately announced her intention of
abrogating her mandate, too, in favour of treaty relations
on lines somewhat similar to those followed by Britain in
Iraq.
Peninsular Arabia was also finally freed from the Turks
by the Great War, the Yemen and the Hijaz both obtain-
ing their independence. The Sharif Husain, the Arabian
chief who played the leading part in Arab participation,
and who, shortly after the war, proclaimed himself king of
the Hijaz, did not long maintain his position, for the
Wahhabi invasion under Ibn Sa'ud drove him from his
throne to die in exile, not, however, before he had lived
to see his line established dynastically on two new Arabian
thrones, his son Faisal as king of Iraq, his son Abdullah as
amir of Trans-Jordan.
King Faisal ibn Husain was doubtless one of the two
outstanding Arab figures of the war and postwar period,
as King Abdul Aziz ibn Sa'ud was the other; the one, of
Constantinople upbringing and sophisticated mien, nomi-
nal leader of the Arab Revolt and spearpoint of wartime
Arab nationalism, who came, as a result of Allied victory,
to be raised to a throne ; the other, the supreme product
of the deserts, the puritan warrior-statesman of Nejd, to-
day the master of the holy cities and most influential
among Arab rulers, a Cromwell who carved out his own
kingdom and founded a royal line. Europeans who have
come under the influence of his personality and admire
his wonderful exploits are given to bemoan the day when
the Allies, in supporting Faisal, 'backed the wrong horse.'
But in the early war days it was Faisal's sire who had the
prestige which must attach at all times to the possession
of the holy places, nor did Ibn Sa'ud's influence with
Ibn Rashid in the way reach far enough northwards to
THE ARABS
admit of his rendering effective military assistance on
General Allenby's flank. Yet coming events had cast their
shadows, and though Ibn Sa'ud did not take a more active
part in the Great War, his benevolent neutrality brought
him a handsome subsidy from the British government 6 as
a palliative to the resentment he felt for the recognition
and support given to the Sharif Husain, his hated enemy,
and as a means of pacifying the tribes in Allied interests.
Despite the fact that it was Ibn Sa'ud who was the first
to raise the standard of revolt and expel Turkish influence
from Arab soil this before the Great War the Arab
nationalist movement during the war, as we have noted,
was, in effect, a movement of the politically minded
Turcofied Arabs outside Arabia. Thus the conception of
the two great Arab figures of the period as the embodi-
ment of the two Arab cultures led to a view that the 'fancy'
of the Arab backers in the nationalist stables, at the time,
would be for Faisal's colours.
'60,000 per annum.
[292]
CHAPTER XII
Palestine
And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the
land of thy sojourning, all the land of Canaan^ for an ever-
lasting possession. JEHOVAH'S PROMISE TO ABRAHAM.
We have come not as Conquerors but as Deliverers.
GENERAL ALLENBY.
T
Am
.HE military campaigns of the Allies, waged in the
lands of the Arabs, have nearly everywhere brought these
Arabs political emancipation. Of the five Arab provinces
that had for centuries lain under Turkish dominion the
Iraq, the Hijaz, the Yemen, Syria and Palestine three
have achieved independence; the fourth appears about
to achieve it; only Palestine remains. Viewed in a wide
perspective, therefore, the Arabs have done better out of
the Great War that ravaged their countries than many
of its regular participants. The Palestine Arabs are the
exception, and their country, too, they say, must be an
Arab state.
The word 'Palestine' (= Philistine) connotes to a
stranger a country of considerable significance. In point
of fact it is a province rather than a country, being in
size no bigger than Wales ; its population is but that of a
European city, having only recently passed the million
[293]
THE ARABS
mark; its entire revenues would scarcely pay for a modern
battle cruiser. Yet for its mastery a local struggle goes on
as bitter in spirit as any that it knew in crusading times ;
though the disputants are no longer the rival peoples of
Christendom and Islam, but Jew and Arab, and the issue
is no longer religion but nationalism.
At present Palestine is administered by neither Jew
nor Arab, but by the Christian power that conquered it
from the Turks a curious echo of the crusades, if a false
one, being an adventitious result of an unwanted war. But
however small the area involved and scant its population
today (1,300,000), yet the postwar course of events in
Palestine has been no smooth one. At intervals of every
few years, recurring all too regularly, violent collisions
between its Arab and Jew inhabitants have disturbed the
peace of the land. The cause of such outbreaks, whether
attributed to some immediate local disaffection, over land
or religion, for instance, has been at bottom nationalistic.
The Arabs avow that they want an Arab state ; the Zion-
ists declare they want a Jewish majority. At the root of
racial antagonism is the impelling desire^of each for po-
litical ascendancy. Local agitation is further encouraged
by the very nature of the mandatory system, namely that
the mandatory connection is only temporary.
The League of Nations is under commitments to the
Zionists and to the Arabs. The mandate expresses itself in
the same terms as the Balfour Declaration, namely that
the aim is to bring about "the establishment of a National
Home for the Jewish people. ... it being clearly under-
stood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the
civil and religious rights of existing non- Jewish communi-
ties.'
The mandatory's difficulties in implementing this policy
[294]
w 1
CO
PQ
CO
O
fe
s
PALESTINE
need only be stated to be understood. Palestine's popula-
tion is predominantly Arab and has been so for the last
twelve centuries. At the time of the British conquest Arabs
formed ninety per cent of the population. Today no less
than seventy per cent are Arabs, nine tenths of them
Moslem Arabs, and their political leaders oppose the
League's policy and declare that the outside world has
no right to dispose of their country in opposition to its
own wishes and contrary to the League's early de-
clared principle of the rights of small nations to self-
determination. The Zionists, similarly, insist on the rights
of their own gifted people to a place in the sun, point to
the unique position in the world today of a nation sixteen
millions strong, scattered in hopeless minorities among
the other nations of the earth, without a country to call
its own. They urge that it is with Palestine that the ancient
glories of their nation are associated, claim that all down
the centuries, both before and after the Arab conquest in
the seventh century, Jews have continuously lived there
and that world Jewry has never ceased to regard Palestine
as its spiritual home.
The Zionist Jews consider, moreover, that they have
moral claims upon an enlightened world because of the
great contributions in music, art and science, in philosophy
and religion made by the Jews to Western civilization,
while non-Jewish sympathizers have urged that a Jewish
national home in Palestine is but compensation for the
persecution Jews suffered at the hands of Western Europe
in the Middle Ages. Persecution is still their lot in Ger-
many and parts of eastern Europe. They are tired of
being unwanted guests in the houses of others and de-
mand a home of their own, this home to be their own
historic one where David and Solomon ruled three thou-
[295]
THE ARABS
sand years ago, the background of their ancient and superb
literature, our Scriptures. The problem has been aggra-
vated by their increasing numbers and by that spirit of
renewed antipathy which is manifesting itself in Germany
and elsewhere today. The Jews in the time of our Lord
are thought to have numbered three millions. Under the
persecutions of the Middle Ages their numbers fell so
that at the beginning of the seventeenth century world
Jewry numbered but a million or so. Early nineteenth
century estimates place them at two or three millions ; by
the middle of that century they had doubled their num-
bers, and today there are some sixteen or seventeen
million Jews. Their voice is therefore a growing one,
however much it may be a voice in the wilderness.
When the war ended and found Palestine occupied by a
British army and ruled by a British administration, ad-
vanced Zionists were urging that Palestine must be as
Jewish as England was English, and enthusiasts among
them in the outside world are said to have left some
part of their new buildings unfinished as a sign that they
were pilgrims in a strange land. At the Peace Conference
the Zionist Organization put forward three demands : the
recognition of Jewish claims to Palestine, opportunities
to settle three to four million Jews there and the request
that Britain should be the mandatory Power. A favourable
reception was accorded Dr Weizmann, the Zionist repre-
sentative and the distinguished chemist, who by his scien-
tific discoveries had done great service for the Allies ; the
immigration demand was, however, left to the discretion
of the mandatory.
The Arabs also had their claims to Allied consideration.
The value of the Arab Revolt in India and Syria has al-
ready been noticed. The Sharif Husain in his negotiations
[296]
PALESTINE
which brought about the Arab Revolt had asked, at the
outset, for the autonomy of all the Arab lands, which of
course included Palestine, and although this was not ex-
plicitly agreed to, the Arab revolters considered that they
entered the war without foreseeing a policy in Palestine
which, in their view, was more damaging to Arab interests
than the old Ottoman rule had been. The Balf our Declara-
tion, therefore, came as a bombshell and was utterly dis-
tasteful to them, and the name Balfour among politically
minded Arabs today is a name of execration. On the other
hand the Amir (later King) Faisal, who represented the
Arab cause at the Peace Conference, is said to have been
on friendly terms with the Zionist leaders and to have sent
a letter to Dr Weizmann expressing cordial sympathy
with the idea of the establishment of the Jewish National
Home in Palestine, though it is clear that he could not
have foreseen all the present political developments.
From the day the mandate came into existence, on-
wards, the proportions of Jewish immigration have been
a matter of the deepest concern for both Arabs and Jews,
for on it rests the ultimate numerical superiority of one or
other within the state. In the exercise of the mandate,
therefore, this has been the most delicate of its problems. A
stony strip of territory along the eastern Mediterranean
coast, bordered eastwards by the Jordan Valley and
stretching northwards to end well short of the Sea of
Galilee, Palestine clearly has limited potentialities for
supporting population. The Zionists, anxious for Jewish
immigration on a large scale, place its capacity high. The
Arabs, anxious to stop the inflow of Jews, place it corre-
spondingly low. Some estimators, who have no obvious
political bias, have supposed that Palestine is capable of
supporting a population of not much more than double
[297]
THE ARABS
its present number, estimates varying with the degree of
industrialization permitted. But as a pastoral and agri-
cultural country, with about two thirds of its soil already
under cultivation, any considerable increase in the popu-
lation inevitably means changing the face of the land.
Immigration of workmen from countries having a higher
standard of living leads to new wants, for different food,
clothing and housing, imposes on Palestine the necessity
for changing her ways, of no longer contenting herself
with her own milk and honey; in short, she is being com-
pelled, by outside influences, to become progressive ac-
cording to one school of thought, to become alienized ac-
cording to another.
The Jews claim that with greater industrialization the
population could be vastly increased, the amenities of
life added to and the country made prosperous. Already a
big electrification scheme from the waters of the Jordan
is progressing under the Rutenberg Concession. But the
highest hopes are reserved for development of her chemi-
cal wealth. Estimates that she is capable of supplying the
world with all the potash it will need for a thousand years
may be exaggerated, but of the existence of large and
valuable deposits there is no doubt, and with proper
exploitation it is said that Palestine potash could be
produced at half the recent German monopoly price and at
a fraction of American war prices. That curious phenom-
enon, the Dead Sea, with its concentration of chemical
salts ten times that of sea water, has always attracted
the chemical minds of the world, so that as long ago as
1867 some sixteen hundred memoranda had already been
published. Harbour development is another feature of
Palestine's recent progress, and Haifa, with its oil re-
fineries at the end of the transdesert pipe line from the
PALESTINE
new Mosul fields, is already the third seaport in the east-
ern Mediterranean.
If the Arab political leaders see in developments*
coupled with foreign capitalistic interests, an undermining
of their own hoped-for leadership, or for some other
reason prefer the old order of things to the new, if they
desire to stop Jewish immigration and Jewish concessions
as prejudicial to the interests of their native land as they
conceive them, the onus for measuring their complaints
and applying a remedy where one is thought necessary
rests with the mandatory Power.
The political difficulties inherent in the Palestine man-
date are clear. The liquidation of Zionist claims in full
involves the repudiation of Arab claims and vice versa.
The problem is one that calls for fine adjustment one that
entails, in practice, a partial repudiation of the full-
blooded claims of both sides, and therefore can be satis-
factory to neither. In the administrative sphere it is pos-
sible to hold the scales evenly between the two, but the
moment an incident happens vital and irreconcilable
political principles emerge to complicate the situation.
Protagonists on either side avow that some sacred princi-
ple is involved that does not admit of compromise. The
problem is on the face of it insoluble peaceably, unless the
terms 'national home' on the one hand and 'Arab rights'
on the other are given a more limited meaning than
partisans on the Zionist and Arab sides will at present
allow. The situation is not made easier by the fact that
the mandatory is only a trustee, an agent rather than a
proprietor, in law, and that the Arab- Jew problem is not
merely a local problem but has world ramifications. Mos-
lems throughout the world, especially Arab kinsmen in
Iraq, Syria and Egypt, sympathize with the Palestinian
[299]
THE ARABS
Arabs, and their newspapers condemn Zionist aspirations
while doubtless in narrow religious Moslem circles
Palestine is thought of as Islam Irredenta. On the other
hand the Zionists also represent a world movement with
the backing of wide financial and political interests and the
ear of many influential chancelleries.
For both Zionist and Arab politicians Jewish immigra-
tion Is of fundamental importance as affecting vitally the
ultimate constitution of Palestine's population. The man-
datory, in its role of establishing a national home, has al-
lowed Jewish immigration; in its role of safeguarding
Arab civil rights it has set limits to it. The principle it has
normally followed has been based fundamentally on Pales-
tine's absorptive capacity at the time. There have been two
half-yearly quotas. These, when announced, have produced
violent and opposite reactions in the Arab and Jewish
press. To the Arabs the figures have been as a red rag
to a bull; by the Jews they have, till the last few years,
been bitterly criticized as niggardly and inadequate.
According to the last census figures the total number of
immigrants allowed in during the thirteen years 1919
1931 was 101,400; that is to say, one immigrant to every
ten natives ; expressed in another way, ten immigrants to
the square mile; or in still another, an average of 7,800
per annum.
The countries of origin were as follows :
Russia and Poland 67,000
Roumania 4,400
Lithuania 3, 500
United States 1,400
Germany 1,000
British Empire 400
Miscellaneous (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the
Yemen, etc.) 23,000
[300]
PALESTINE
That sixty-seven per cent of the immigrants should have
come from Russia and Poland constituted a grievance, ac-
cording to the Arabs, namely that the less desirable, not
the best, Jews were being brought into Palestine. They
held that the old native Palestinian was, for the most
part, a simple, God-fearing, conservative-minded son of
the soil, whereas the incoming Jew was the proletarian
from eastern Europe, of advanced left-wing political and
moral opinions, obnoxious to the Palestinians and sub-
versive of their way of life. Against this it was said that
the personnel of the incomers, which was left to the
Zionist organizations, was the subject of their special
care and that none was allowed in unless possessing capi-
tal or under promise of work.
But the capital backing of Jewish immigrants, often
made possible by American generosity, was another sub-
ject of Arab grievance, for this influx of capital, they held,
was upsetting the economic equilibrium of Palestine's agri-
culture. This agriculture, the country's basic industry, was
founded not in raising crops to sell overseas; it was
primarily a subsistence economy. The cultivator was a
small holder who worked not for a profit or a wage, but
for subsistence for food for himself and his family.
Immigration, it was argued, with capital backing and
modern machinery from outside, tended to upset this
equilibrium by creating a demand for land; land values
soared, and the urge of individual Arab landowners
often absentee landowners to enjoy sudden wealth, led
in places to a change of owner from native to immigrant.
This produced unrest, because it tended to make for a
landless class of native suddenly deprived of his habitual
means of livelihood.
Hence on the one hand it is held that every fresh inflow
THE ARABS
of immigrants with its fresh demand for land means a
fresh tendency to dislocation; on the other, that the new
technique and more up-to-date methods of the incoming
agriculturist must increase productivity and result in a
higher standard of living for the country as a whole. This
is a feature which may lend itself to exaggeration, because
only one tenth of Palestine's agriculture is in Jewish hands,
and Zionists strenuously deny that Jewish immigration has
brought about a landless class of Arab.
It is industry, trade and commerce that have attracted
Jewish enterprise. According to the 1931 census already
one third of Palestine's commerce was in Jewish hands.
This is the basis of another fear of the Arab politician,
namely that even where immigrants today are agricultur-
ists, their sons, the Jews of the second generation, will be
agriculturists no longer. Natural propensities and superior
education will draw them into nonproductive but more
remunerative callings they will be lawyers, shopkeepers,
landowners or, at all events, members of the rent-drawing
classes, while the native Arabs of the country will be their
hewers of wood and drawers of water. The Zionists an-
swer that this fear is groundless and that the bulk of the
immigrants have been absorbed in productive forms of
industry which the Jews themselves have established in the
country.
In manner of living, dress and occupation the Arab
community falls into three main classes, the Be4ttiiv<he
fellahin and the city dw;^Qr^TJhj^dm
andjtHe most primitive, element shepherds, who^cultur-
ally correspond most nearly with their kinsman, the desert
nomad. They are scarcely producers and do not participate
in politics except indirectly, in times of political upheaval,
to indulge the inherited instinct of improving the shining
[302]
PALESTINE
hour by robbing and looting, which they regard as a legit-
imate phase of war. There may be sixty thousand of them,
but they are said to be dwindling.
The fellahin are the agriculturists the peasants and
farmers who form the backbone of the population and are
Palestine's producers. The average holding of a family is
about twenty acres, which is sufficient for a peasant life
in the Old World but means a low standard of living
where the land is stony and poor and the methods of farm-
ing old fashioned. 1 Tenancy conditions are severe, and the
fruits of labour small, generally twenty per cent to thirty
per cent of the crop, or, if the cultivator supplies the seed,
fifty per cent. A view of the Zionists is that the lot of the
wretched fellahin of the hills, living a precarious existence
and often in the grip of the local usurer, will be greatly
improved by their activities.
The Arab town dwellers consist of the professional
propertied and trading classes, with a small but growing
labouring class. Here, as elsewhere in the world, it is the
lettered urban circles that produce the politically minded
and vocal elements. They voice the Arab opposition to a
Jewish national home in Palestine and clamour for Arab
freedom and independence from a foreign yoke.
Palestine's population figures according to its census for
the ten years 1922-31 were as follows:
Population Population Percentage
in in increase
IQ22 1931 approx.
Arabs (Moslems) 591,000 760,000 28.5
Arabs (Christian) 82,000 101,000 23.0
Jews 84,000 175,000 100.0
^he Sir John Hope Simpson Report (October, 1930) ^states that the
minimum requirement to support an Arab agricultural family, under pres-
ent methods, is about thirty acres.
[303]
THE ARABS
The birth and death rates in 1931 were:
Deaths per 1000 Births per 1000
Arabs 26 48
Jews 9-4 cf . England 32
10.5
Taking these figures together, the percentage of Jewish
increase was four times greater than the Arab increase.
On the other hand the absolute figures show that the Arabs
increased more than the Jews had done, viz :
Arab increase 169,000
Jew increase 91,000
Thus the expansion of Palestine's population for the
period up to 1931 an astounding one of 36.8 per cent in
ten years came about primarily not from immigration,
but from fertility of the existing population; Arab fertility
exceeded Jewish fertility to an extent which largely offset
Jewish immigration, and the population, at this rate of
fertility plus immigration, must double itself in the short
space of twenty years unless checks occur according to
Malthusian principles, that is to say, checks imposed by
subsistence limits.
With the prospect of saturation in view assuming that
Palestine cannot support a population more than double
its present one the Zionist grievance was that, under the
rate of immigration allowed for the decade 19221931,
there was no chance of catching up with the Arab lead, so
that the National Home, as they understood it, was not
being brought about by the mandatory.
During the past few years a greatly accelerated rate of
immigration has taken place. This would appear to have
been stimulated by external world affairs. As has been seen,
[304]
PALESTINE
the normal policy of the mandatory has been to base the
quota on the purely economic consideration of Palestine's
ability to absorb. But the persecution of Jews in Germany
and a far-reaching economic and political discrimination
against Jews through eastern Europe generally seem to
have introduced a new feature. Abnormal periods of pros-
perity, or at least unusual labour demands in Palestine,
have coincided with a large exodus of Jews from central
and eastern Europe at a time when the United States,
Canada, Australia and other countries of great spaces
where, normally, they could have turned to, have closed
their doors during a world slump. The pressure to emi-
grate from Poland, Austria, Roumania and central and
eastern Europe generally seems to have encouraged Pales-
tine, as their appropriate asylum under the National
Home, to open wider its doors, while the inflow of fresh
capital created scope for them, in the mandatory's judg-
ment. 2
Hence, as against the ten years 19221931, when only
71,000 Jewish immigrants were allowed in (an average
of 7, 100 a year touching its low point in 1929 with 4,000) ,
the past four years have seen the annual quota zoom up
by 400 per cent and last year to 800 per cent, so that al-
most as many immigrants came in last year as were allowed
in the ten years ending 1 93 1, viz :
1932 9,553
1933 30,327
1934 4^,359
1935 61,854
1936 14,646 (up to June)
"Immigrants are distinguished by those having capital backing and those
being allowed in under the labour schedule. During the peak year, 1935,
the labour schedule accounted for 11,000 approximately.
[305]
THE ARABS
Of these, 35,000 came from Germany alone Jews
who have left under the Hitler regime of which number
8,000 came in the peak year 1935.
It is this increased rate of Jewish immigration during
the past few years that is at the bottom of the present
Arab unrest (1936). The new figures, if maintained, will
bring about a Jewish majority, and it is the prospect of
a Jewish majority which has so alarmed the Arabs. Popu-
lation capacity, at this rate, will soon be reached, and
Zionists are said to be looking beyond Palestine, across
the Jordan to the emptier spaces of the ancient lands of
Edom and Moab, familiar nowadays as Trans- Jordan, the
Arab buffer state against the desert, under the rule of the
Amir Abdullah. The Arabs are hostile to this, holding that
Trans- Jordan's exclusion from the National Home is ex-
plicitly provided for by promises made to them. Today
there are no Jews there, and in times past so fierce has been
the local antagonism that a Jew crossing the Jordan with-
out government's permission or protection did so at the
peril of his life. Not all Arabs are politicians, of course,
and not all Jews are Zionists, but the conflict of extremists
in Palestine has, unfortunately, been to stir up racial an-
tipathies.
Both Arab and Zionist movements have their political
organizations whose aims, naturally, are mutually con-
flicting. There are right-wing, left-wing and centre par-
ties in each movement, the greatest hope of co-operation
lying where respective right and left wings touch. But
the wing of a movement is, in the nature of things, not
representative, and men of most moderate opinion on one
side with sympathies for the most moderate opinion on the
other are swept aside by mass emotion as political crises
periodically recur.
PALESTINE
The Arab Higher Committee today, the official mouth-
piece of Arab nationalism, is formed of representatives
of a number of Arab bodies. The Arab Congress, a repre-
sentative body formed in 1921, immediately voiced its
protest against the Balfour Declaration and denounced
Jewish immigration on principle. When in 192223 the
mandatory made certain proposals for a legislative coun-
cil, then for an advisory council of nominated Arabs and
Jews, and finally, when these fell through, for an Arab
agency parallel to the Jewish Agency, these proposals, as
made, did not satisfy the Arabs who were averse to co-
operation because it seemed to them to be an act of recog-
nition of the Balfour Declaration and to invalidate the
principle of the Arab state.
A representative but ostensibly nonpolitical Arab body
of considerable influence today is the Moslem Supreme
Council under the presidency of the grand mufti of Jeru-
salem. This purely Moslem body administers waqfs, or
sacred endowments, and so enjoys great influence as the
source of patronage. Some of the advanced Arab nation-
alists desire to see the lessening of the great influence
wielded by religious leaders, as such, but religion is still a
potent factor with the Arab masses, and such leaders have
as much power as the political leaders, if indeed the offices
are not in many cases identical.
In 1934 there were three main parties, the Palestine
Arab party, the National Defence party and the party of
Independence.
The Palestine Arab party is the majority party and sup-
ported by the representatives of the fellahin and labour
groups. It is opposed to co-operation with the mandatory.
The National Defence party is the moderate party
and attracts the wealthier and bureaucratically minded
[307]
THE ARABS
class of the people, including some of the intellectuals. It is
regarded as a party aiming at co-operation with the gov-
ernment.
The party of Independence is the extremist group, an
offshoot in 1932 of the Palestine Arab party. It is Pan-
Arab rather than Pan-Islamic and has for its aim the uni-
fication of Palestine, Syria and Iraq into one Arabian in-
dependent nation as existed in the two centuries following
the Prophet.
In spite of religious differences between Palestine Mos-
lems and Palestine Christians and the massacre of Nes-
torian Assyrians in Iraq immediately following Iraq's
achievement of independence a year or two ago bodes not
too well for minorities who get above themselves in the
young Arab state at this stage politics transcend religion
in the nationalist movement in Palestine. If the masses,
Moslem and Christian, that are being brought together
under the common banner, as yet scarcely understand poli-
tics in the Western sense of the word, their leaders do and
avow enthusiastic discipleship of the political philosophy
of John Morley, namely that self-government is to be
preferred to good government, and also avow a fondness
for the dictum of his successor at the India Office, Edwin
Montagu, himself a Jew, as applied to India, namely that
the masses should be stirred out of their apathetic content.
The demand of Arab nationalism is for self-determination.
The Jewish parties in Palestine are parts of larger par-
ties in the Zionist movement throughout the world. In
some cases divisions have occurred in Palestine itself,
for the ideals formed outside have undergone modification
when coming into contact with the realities of the internal
situation. If the underlying ideal is a common one, namely
the establishment of the Jewish National Home, there are
PALESTINE
several parties among the Jews with different programmes
reflecting distinctions of class and of interests. The left-
wing party, called the Labour party, is Socialist with a few
Communists. It is composed largely of immigrants from
eastern Europe who, having been oppressed, corne with
advanced political views. The Federation of Jewish
Labour in 1932 numbered 34,000 members, and these
with their wives and children constituted about one third
of the Jew population of Palestine (at the end of 1935 it
was 67,800). They have a daily newspaper, hospitals and
schools. Their first plank is to insist on a large and steady
immigration of Jews into Palestine as a means of attain-
ing the National Home ; their second plank is the national-
ization of land; their hope is that Palestine ultimately be-
comes a co-operative commonwealth, though it is to their
interests at present to stand for co-operation with the
mandatory.
The Jewish right-wing party, founded in 1923, is called
the Revisionist party. Its critics describe it as Fascist,
if that is not a paradox in view of the anti-Semitism of
European Fascism. An anti-Socialist movement, it would
replace the class struggle by the ultimate ideal of the state ;
it finds support among youth who hold strong views and
believe in strong action to bring about an out-and-out
Jewish state. Its object is to create a self-governed Jewish
commonwealth in Palestine with a population predomi-
nantly Jew on both sides of the Jordan. And to attain this
predominance it demands the sequestration of all unculti-
vated lands and a rate of immigration at the recent tempo,
holding that the end could be achieved in twenty-five years
by a yearly quota of forty thousand or, if Trans- Jordan
be included, fifty thousand to sixty thousand. The Revision-
ists reject self-governing institutions in Palestine so long as
[309]
THE ARABS
the Jews are in a minority, reject negotiations with the
Arabs so long as they do not recognize the Balfour Dec-
laration and favour, for the time, the continuance of Brit-
ish legislative and administrative control. They form a
small party outside the Zionist organization.
The middle party or liberal party of Palestine Jews are
the General Zionists, who demand the immigration of the
middle-class Jew rather than the wholesale admission of
workers. It is mostly anti-Socialist and anti-Revisionist and
is broadly attached to the principles of private enterprise
and personal freedom and, generally speaking, is a central
party with a social and economic programme similar to
that of traditional centre parties in Europe. It attracts the
merchant, the orange grower, the educationist and the like,
and co-operates with the mandatory Power.
An orthodox religious organization among the Palestine
Jews, the nearest thing perhaps to the grand mufti's coun-
cil among the Moslems, is the Orthodox or Mizrachi
party. It is traditionalist in spirit as opposed to modernist,
is inspired by ideals of religious and pious upbuilding of
the state founded in the law and traditions and opposes the
irreligious and unorthodox in the Zionist movement. Its
activities have most to do with religion and education,
while politically it inclines to the right wing of Zionism.
Lastly there exists a Jewish society whose influence,
more especially outside Palestine, is greater than the
meagre membership suggests. It is known as Brith-Shalom,
or Covenant of Peace. It criticizes the Zionist leaders for
looking to the West for support instead of coming into
closer contact with the Arabs among whom the Jews will
have to live, and it advocates buying from Arabs instead
of boycotting them. The Brith-Shalom enjoys neither the
confidence of the Arabs nor the Zionists. The Arabs wel-
PALESTINE
come its moderation but suspect it for that very reason and
see in it a greater danger to their ideal of the Arab state.
Brith-Shalom's main idea seems to be that Palestine should
be neither an Arab nor a Jewish state, but a biracial state
in which Jews and Arabs should enjoy equal civil, religious
and political rights without distinction between majority
and minority. It is a group of intellectuals who construe
the term 'national home for the Jews' less as a Jewish
sovereign state than as a spiritual home. Both the Labour
arfrl the Revisionist parties oppose it as standing for 'just
another minority group of Jews, this time in Palestine.*
Perhaps this underestimates what has already been done
for the Jews by the mandatory, for the status of the Jews
in Palestine is equal to that of the native Arab ; though
the native Jew was in 19 1 8 in a minority of one to nine, to-
day the Jews are to the Arabs as three is to seven and for
the most part are of foreign birth ; the Hebrew language
has been elevated to an equal official status with that of
Arabic; the postage stamps and coins are in three lan-
guages : Arabic, Hebrew and English; a Jewish university
has sprung up in Jerusalem, and everywhere there has been
a revival of the ancient Hebrew, so that from being almost
a dead language it has now become the common tongue
of Jewish immigrants coming from all over the world. All
Jewish children growing up in Palestine learn Hebrew as
their mother tongue, and whereas in the old days the pri-
vate schools were Anglo- Jewish, German-Jewish, French-
Jewish, today the Zionist schools are Hebrew- Jewish.
The twin terms of the mandate that (a) Palestine must
be a national home for the Jews, and (b) the civil and re-
ligious rights of the Arabs must on no account be permitted
to suffer, may be a counsel of perfection and are without
doubt unimpeachable in intent, but for the high commis-
THE ARABS
sioner called upon to translate them into action they are
often the horns of a dilemma. Periodical rebellion and the
resultant impasse is, in origin, perhaps less the fault of the
Arabs or of the Jews than of those in authority during the
war, who, by idealistically framed declarations or verbal
promises, have led both Jews and Arabs to expect too
much, so that each one is demanding and expecting more
than is compatible with the demand and expectation of the
other. It is another unfortunate war legacy. The mo-
mentous issues involved at that time led authorities in
closest touch with Jews and Arabs severally to make
promises, in moments of enthusiasm or gratitude, which
are incapable of fulfilment side by side.
The issues are deeper than the agrarian discontent or
the religious incident which in the past has been the im-
mediately preceding cause of communal strife ; though the
pursuit by one side or other of some unenlightened self-
interest has been the means of bringing latent anger to
white heat and leading to riots and rebellion.
The occasion of the flare-up in 1929 was a religious in-
cident connected with the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. The
visitor to Jerusalem who has witnessed the interesting
ritual of the Jews praying at the Wall will remember that
the sacred structure forms part of the temple of Herod
the lower six courses of original stonework still actually
remain and is the traditional site of Solomon's temple.
Here the Jews have been accustomed from time immemor-
ial to bewail the departed glories of Judah. Tradition goes
back to the prophet Jeremiah that the Jews who remained
in the Holy Land during the Babylonian captivity were in
the habit of worshipping on these ruins; the Pilgrim of
Bordeaux who visited Jerusalem in A.D. 33 mentions that
all Jews came once a year to this place, weeping and la-
PALESTINE
menting ; Jewish writers of the tenth and eleventh centuries
mention repairs, while in 1840 a Turkish decree forbade
the Jews from paving the passage in front of the wall, it
being only permissible for them to visit it l as of old', so
that under the Turks there was no hindrance to the old
Jewish usage.
The troubles of 1929 were brought about by the Arabs
erecting in this place of special sanctity for the Jews a
place from which God's presence has never departed a
new structure at one end, and at the other end converting
a house into a zawiyah, fitting up a lavatory close by, and
making a new doorway that opened up a thoroughfare
from the sacred pavement under the Wall into the mosque
of the Dome of the Rock, so that the Jewish worshippers
were interrupted by a stream of men and animals over
the pavement. The Jews did not put forward a claim to
ownership but asserted that the Arabs were behaving
malevolently, and bickerings led to riots.
The Arabs alleged provocation. They held that this
was not the crux of the matter. The Jews, they said, were
doing what they had no right to do and had never done
before, namely they were making use of benches, a screen
for separating men and women, an ark with the Scrolls
of the Law and ritual lamps, which together constituted
an open synagogue, and this on Moslem property, for the
Wall forms part of the western wall of the plinth on
which the Dome of the Rock (otherwise known as the
Mosque of Omar) is erected. This, too, is a place of
special sanctity to the Moslem world, for, according to a
medieval Arab writer, it was 'here that God called David
and Solomon to repentance, here that he put all that
worked in the earth or flew in the air under subjection to
David, here was discovered to Solomon the Rock which
[313]
THE ARABS
was the first corner of the whole earth to be created, here
unto Mary (peace be upon her) winter fruits came in sum-
mer, and summer fruits in winter, here did Jesus speak
when in the cradle, here where angels ascend and descend
every night, here Gog and Magog shall conquer the
whole earth except the sanctuary, and here shall take
place the gathering of all men on the Day of Resurrec-
tion.' 22 * But perhaps the greatest stress on the sacredness
of the Wall and pavement lies in the belief that it was here
that Muhammad the Prophet tied up his aerial steed on
the occasion of his miraculous visit through the seven
heavens to the throne of the Almighty, as the Qur'anic
version, in tiles around the mosque dome, recalls, and the
name of this steed Boraq is the name by which the local
Arabs know the Wailing Wall to this day.
The magnitude of the disturbances and the delicate
nature of the religious implications led the League of
Nations to send out a commission of inquiry. It consisted
of three non-British members, under the chairmanship of
a former Swedish minister of foreign affairs, and its find-
ings were legally enacted and are now enforced under
mandatory authority. These were that the Wall and pave-
ment belong to the Moslems, but Jews have the right of
usage for their services, except that they must not intro-
duce screens and other appurtenances which constitute a
synagogue. Moslems are forbidden the right of structural
alterations impairing Jewish access, and the new doorway
into the mosque must be closed on Jewish holy days and
a prohibition placed on the driving of animals along the
pavement during certain hours daily, when Jews are per-
forming their devotions ; the maintenance of the Wall and
pavement being the joint concern of Moslems and manda-
tory.
PALESTINE
Disturbances broke out a few years later in Jaffa fol-
lowing a bitter press campaign around the Arabs' griev-
ances and fears, chief among which was the question of
illicit immigration, the Arabs declaring that during the
preceding twelve months over fifteen thousand Jewish im-
migrants had come in illicitly over and above the quota.
Emphasis was placed on the land question too. The Jewish
population in 193233 was at about the two hundred
thousand mark, representing approximately a fifth of the
entire population. Nearly a quarter of the Jews lived in
agricultural settlements (today it is relatively much less)
forming the highest proportion of Jewish rural popula-
tion in the world. They were largely self-contained and
autonomous communities. The Arab grievance was this:
that lands acquired by the Jewish National Fund, whether
from government or from a Palestinian landowner (often
absentee), became henceforth forbidden territory to the
native Arab cultivator. The Jewish National Fund ac-
quired land, evicted the native Arab peasant and installed
the Jewish immigrant. Zionist leases quite openly con-
tained a clause forbidding the employment of non- Jewish
labour. Inquiries after the troubles, by a judicial officer of
the government, following Sir John Hope Simpson's re-
port, established six hundred cases of Arabs who had been
rendered landless by Jewish purchase of land, whether
privately or under the National Fund, and these have since
been offered land by the government in compensation. The
Arabs complain of a systematic boycott of Arab labour by
the Jews. The Zionists affirm that more Arab labour is
employed in Jewish orange gardens than Jew.
Such questions appear to be subsidiary. The rising of
the Arabs this year (1936) in the form of national polit-
ical strike, as we have seen, arose from the fundamental
[315]
THE ARABS
grievance the sudden great increase in the quota of Jews
being allowed in. The Arabs are indifferent to the causes
which have impelled acceleration, they being concerned
only by its effect for themselves, as they see it. The Arabs
do not want the Jews and they do not want the mandate.
Recent history in the Arab countries, as well as Palestine,
does not suggest that they are amenable to political subor-
dination. Political domination under the sword of the
strong, such as they themselves originally imposed upon
the world, is in their recurrent moods more honourable to
them, however distasteful for others, than a voluntary sur-
render of rights they consider sacred. The give and take of
Western democratic politics is as yet alien to Middle East
tradition.
The recent remarkable growth in Palestine's population
is an index to its prosperity. It is a country which, under
the mandate, has, comparatively speaking, been without
an unemployment problem. It has balanced its budget,
year after year, without recourse to foreign loans. Where
almost every other country has experienced economic set-
backs, Palestine has been largely free from them. This is
due principally to the copious inflow of gold that has ac-
companied Jewish immigration and, in part, to an efficient
and enlightened form of administration.
Politically Palestine has undergone a great change.
From being a small, Turkish-administered province it has
acquired the status of a country and is ruled under an
elaborate crown colony form of British administration.
The direction of affairs rests in a high commissioner, an
executive council composed of four senior members of his
staff and an advisory council, made up of these and five
other chiefs of departments. Though Palestinian Arabs
and Jews do not as yet hold these senior posts they provide
PALESTINE
nearly all the subordinate personnel, while in their respeiy
tive social, economic and religious affairs they enjoy great
freedom, in keeping with the spirit of the mandate.
As yet there is no representative government in Pales-
tine. Indeed to make government truly representative on
the basis of numbers, at this stage, would entail a pre-
dominantly Arab and actively anti-Jew majority; and the
mandatory has therefore resisted Arab demands in this
direction. The mandatory is in the position of not being
able to allow Arab nationalist aspirations to debar the
fulfilment of basic promises made to the Zionists. On the
other hand it cannot allow Jewish immigration on the scale
demanded by Zionists in utter opposition to the wishes of
the native population, who claim an Arab Palestine as their
birthright, a right, they say, as ancient as the Englishman's
right to England. The mandatory role is to hold the scales
evenly between Jew and Arab, to mitigate their differences
as far as possible by inclining to the extremist of neither
and to use its power and influence to bring the two com-
munities in Palestine nearer to each other in the hope of
making future co-operation between them possible.
Sympathizers will be found for persecuted Jews of
central and eastern Europe faced, in these days of world
unrest and depression, with dosed doors by almost every
country in the world and looking to Palestine as their
principal hope.
Sympathizers will be found for the Arabs of Palestine
who, under the recent tempo of immigration of Jews, are
witnessing the population of their native country passing
against their wishes and without their consent to an alien
majority.
Palestine is Holy Land to Jewry, to Islam and to Chris-
tendom, and as such it has claims to consideration which
THE ARABS
transcend both those of Arab nationalism and Jewish
nationalism, though the special interests of each cannot be
overlooked. Its meagre size is such that it represents but
a fractional part of the Arab territory freed from the yoke
of the Turks by British armies; its scant capacity for
population is such that it could only support a small frac-
tion of the Jews of the world. That this little shrine of
three world religions should be sacrificed to any one ex-
clusive nationalism, apart from the unlikelihood of a one-
sided settlement surviving unscathed another world war,
is probably distasteful to the most liberal and enlightened
thought of today.
[318]
EPILOGUE
Epilogue
HAVE TRACED briefly the life story of the Arabs :
their deliverance from a pagan barbarism in the seventh
century by one of the great figures of history the Prophet
Muhammad, 'threefold founder of a nation, of an empire,
and of a religion'; their marvellous world expansion in
the century that followed ; their splendid medieval civiliza-
tion for three centuries more ; then disintegration and de-
cline amid the buff etings of foreign invaders from East and
West, crusaders, Mongols and Tartars, and so to sub-
mergence within the Ottoman Empire during the past four
centuries ; emergence, finally, and signs of new life in a post-
war world swept by a wave of nationalistic revival.
Today the Arab world in common with the rest of the
world is stirred to its foundations. Under the pressure of
modernism Middle East civilization is in the melting pot ;
many of its distinctive features are disappearing or be-
coming modified out of recognition. Politically the cal-
iphate system of government has gone, an anachronism
in the twentieth century even for the Arabs themselves,
and in its place limited, constitutional, nationalistic forms
THE ARABS
of government of Western form and evolution hold the
field.
Universal education, once the .glory of _Arab civilization,
but abandoned in the later centuries of decayTTs enthroned
again, and with the universal cinema and the universal
press is producing a new shape of mind in the young, while
industrialization under the invasion of Western capital
is changing the livelihood of their elders. This is true not
of the Arabs of Arabia, of course, but of the Arabs with-
out, the historical Arabs who have been liberated from
the Ottoman yoke and awakened to the sense of a new
destiny, whose territories, forming the ancient land bridge
between East and West, have today as airway and oilway
acquired a fresh world significance.
Politically the many Arab states pursue their separate
existences, but behind the mosaic fagade are the ties of
common blood, common tongue and a predominantly com-
mon historical and religious outlook. Educated Arabs
naturally cherish the hope of ultimate political federation,
conscious as they are not merely of a tradition of empire,
but of empire that once dominated a civilized world.
To a foreign observer, however sympathetically dis-
posed, the obstacles in the way of immediate realization of
this aspiration seem considerable, arising as they do not
from outside political influences alone, but from inherent
cultural and economic conditions. We have seen a clear-
cut division between Arabs. The peninsular Arabs, among
whom intertribal and interstate wars have been peren-
nial through the centuries and down to our own times,
are jealous to preserve their own light, indigenous
tribal forms of government, still more their individual
personal liberties. In Palestine unqualified political
sovereignty, whether Arab or other, seems remote in view
[322]
EPILOGUE
of the essential internationalism of that problem, and the
present communal discord between Arab and Jew is likely
to need the safeguard of a guide and friend as far into the
future as it is possible to foresee. There are observers, of
course, who suppose that during the next twenty years
the mandatory system will everywhere disappear by com-
mon consent of interested parties, as has recently taken
place in Iraq and is about to take place in Syria, but Pales-
tine may well be the exception. The present antipathy be-
tween Arabs and Jews should, however, be softened with
the closing of the doors of immigration which must ulti-
mately and at no very distant time come about from the
operation of a law of saturation, and future generations of
Palestine Arabs will then come to regard Palestine Jews
not as alien colonists as they can and do today, but as fel-
low natives* In Iraq the recent coup d'etat in which an
elected, constitutional government was overthrown by the
army, a popular and distinguished minister was assassi-
nated and his two most important colleagues, one of them
the prime minister, were driven into exile, suggests that
ruthless and overmastering individualism is still a para-
mount quality in Arab leadership not a propitious quality
for the wider teamwork required by real federation.
Between Syria and Iraq we have seen a historic rivalry
even before the Arabs came. The Syrian Arab considers
himself and was considered by the Turks to be more ad-
vanced and more capable than the Iraqi Arab, which, if
true, may be expected to lead to Syrian dominance in
any relationship between the two. Iraq, on the other hand,
is the one part of the Arab territories with an assured
economic future; it has great wealth in oil, great cotton
potentialities, may well become another Egypt. Iraq,
therefore, is not likely to be persuaded by its poor relations
[323]
THE ARABS
to abdicate its place of natural priority in the family coun-
cils.
It would seem that the chief political prerequisite of
Arab federation is the building up of an educated and
strong public opinion. Here the Syrian Arabs seem most
likely to lead the way. With them, Arab nationalism is
founded in the homogeneous cultural group speaking the
common tongue, irrespective of religious allegiance ; it is,
in other words, the geographical-linguistic grouping of
Western form. Thus Syrian Moslems and Syrian Chris-
tians find a superloyalty in the ideal of Arab nationality.
While revolting against Western domination, they are con-
verts to Western political philosophy.
The political problem of great importance in the deal-
ings between East and West, one that has loomed large
In the past and may do so again in the political evolution
of the Middle East, is the problem of minorities. It was
a problem that faced the Ottoman Empire and was be-
queathed by it to the Arab states on their dismemberment.
What the West conceives of as morally unjustifiable
massacre of Christian minorities in Ottoman times the
East holds to have been a perfectly legitimate suppression
of revolt. There is a divergence of traditional viewpoint
as to the legitimacy of agitation against authority and of
the ways and means of dealing with it. Public opinion in
circles with absolutist traditions differs from our own, as
the feelings evoked among us over the attitude towards
minority movements in Fascist Germany and Communist
Russia show. In the Middle East repression springs pri-
marily from political motives, not religious bigotry; in-
deed, as we have seen when Jews were outlaws in Christen-
dom it was the Moslem countries that gave them refuge.
Nor is the traditional Middle East absolutism illiberal so
long as subjects are obedient to authority and law abiding,
but clearly where political power is an entrenchment and
not democratically derived minority movements aimed at
weakening it live unhealthy lives.
The Turks were by no means illiberal, for they allowed
minorities a large measure of autonomy. Kurds, Assyrians,
Yezidis, living in groups in the mountains, were encour-
aged to maintain their own laws, language and customs and
were dealt with through their own native leaders aghas,
begs, patriarchs and the rest. Indeed the easygoing way of
the Turks proved to be a weakness when nationalism came
to raise its head in Asia and liberalism had gone as far as
it might. Intimidation and terrorism were then resorted to
as a prevention of political disintegration. The young Arab
state of Iraq, on the threshold of independence a brief
decade ago, was not for repeating the Turkish experiment.
The state within the state had no attractions for Iraq. It
wanted the solidarity of a Western state, a thoroughgoing
absorption of all minorities, without recognition of ad-
ministrative distinctions for each such as the Turks had
conceded, but providing constitutional safeguards for
equality before the law and complete religious toleration,
such, for instance, as Jews enjoy in Britain or France; and
this was approved by the League under mandatory advice.
Assyrian resistance was met in the traditional Middle East
manner, in other words, a manner which was locally con-
sidered justifiable.
Those who laboured for the spirit as well as the letter
of constitutional, democratic and parliamentary govern-
ment of Western form for Iraq may have had their con-
victions shaken, but 'distinctive traditions of civilization
cannot be surrendered or borrowed precipitately without
a shock to the system,' 26 * and political institutions in an
[325]
THE ARABS
"* i
English sense require a long apprenticeship and an edu-
cated public opinion, and in the Middle East time is
needed. Indeed, our system of combining a democratic
form of government with an aristocratic 'organization of
society is, in a sense, the converse of the Eastern system.
There we have a social democracy side 'by side with a
governing class imbued with ideas of political autocracy.
Certain left-wing political movements in the West appear
to have aims not dissimilar.
However important the political reforms that are com-
ing about, a more revolutionary change, because it inti-
mately affects the everyday life of the common people, is
the industrialization of these Arab countries. It is a change
that springs not merely from the world's appetite for oil
and phosphates or its profits in selling machinery, but from
a genuine demand on the part of the progressive, especially
the youthful elements of the local populations. These are
looking to the royalties from their oil fields, to the devel-
opment of irrigation projects and power plants to bring
them a higher standard of life, and they are well aware of
the need of security to serve such ends.
The oil pipe line, completed but a year or two ago, which
brings oil from the new Mosul fields across the Syrian
desert to the Mediterranean, is a triumph of a new order
of things in desert security. Enterprises have sprung up
along the shores of the Dead Sea oblivious of the prox-
imity of the desert raider, which again would not have been
possible under the Turks thirty years ago. What is the
explanation ? It is not that the desert man on the 'fringes
of the sown' is no longer the man he was, has suddenly lost
his lust for plunder, but that his raiding has ceased to pay
him, has ceased to be a menace for others. However un-
palatable the thought, it is the deadly modern weapons
that organized governments now possess that intimidate
him the bomber cruising through the skies at incredible
speed, the steel bulletproof coach with its machine gun
scorching along the frontiers that have driven the desert
man back into his sandy wastes. It took a Roman legion
to do ineff ectively what a few airplanes and armoured cars
do today in making the frontiers secure. It is weapon
superiority, or rather the inventions of the internal-com-
bustion engine and wireless telegraphy enabling a lightning
use of weapon superiority, that have made possible the
development of these borderlands, where the native war-
like man would not otherwise have permitted intrusion.
It is the fear of force which has compelled peace and
progress. And thus Iraq, with wealth enough from her oil
royalties to maintain airplanes and tanks, has, by this fact,
the prestige to compel obedience in her lawless tribal
areas, a peace which without them would be wanting.
Science in the East as in the West is making governments
more powerful, the governed more at their mercy, and
thereby increasing the moral responsibility of those in
authority.
But if security, necessary for progress, is indirectly
affecting the habits and outlook of the borderlands the
effects of industrialization among the sedentary popula-
tions are even more far reaching. In the construction of
the desert pipe line alone some fourteen thousand, natives
were drawn into new forms of activity, leaving their
ploughs, their sheep, their primitive crafts, many of them
doubtless never to return to them. Novel dress, novel food
and clothing perhaps, novel working conditions certainly,
must have left their mark. If the pipe line is one day fol-
lowed by a railway the preliminary surveys for which
have been made, its cost computed in millions, and the
[327]
THE ARABS
time required to build several years the ramifications
will be still wider and deepen The effect of industrializa-
tion is to Europeanize the Arab. Whether for good or ill
great sociological readjustment is in progress. The shep-
herd must discard his loose skirt when he comes to drive
a lorry, for the gears demand it. It may seem a small thing,
but clothing and habits in the common people as well as
changes in the traditional methods of government are
signs of the extent of the change taking place in Middle
East civilization.
Nor is the religious outlook unaffected. In the East as
in the West it is a time of intellectual questioning. A wider
and more secular education and the impact of modern
ideas, especially progressive ideas which challenge the
whole basis of the fatalistic attitude, are naturally tending
to a modern outlook. The familiar European notion that
modernism and Islam are a contradiction in terms, that
modernism is the death knell of Islam, is one, however,
which the educated orthodox Arab vigorously contests. He
points with conviction to the great age of Arab civilization,
which indeed immediately followed the birth of Islam,
when the Arabs assimilated Greek philosophy and Persian
culture without ceasing to practise their faith. He holds
that the depressed condition of today is not the result of
an unprogressive religion but of an unenlightened inter-
pretation of it in these later centuries of decay; that its
original spirit was free, liberal, progressive, and only when
the doors of research and independent thought were
closed, when the laws well suited to medieval times as
evolved by the findings of the early doctors came to be
established as a final and irrevocable interpretation of re-
ligion, that stagnation and narrow-mindedness brought
their trail of woes.
[328]
EPILOGUE
Among Arabs of the enlightened world modernism takes
a variety of forms. To one school the rationalizing influ-
ence of modernism is welcomed as getting rid of supersti-
tions and outworn interpretations of religious belief which
discredited Islam in the eyes of a scientific world. Although
Arabs of this school are often rationalists who no longer
believe in revealed religion and share the general outlook
of the ruling class in Turkey they cherish Islam on his-
torical and sentimental grounds as the faith of their fathers
and see in the adherence thereto of the masses a valuable
counterpoise to Bolshevism and other alien revolutionary
movements. This attitude is found among the Arab gov-
erning classes of Syria and Iraq who are alive to the
value of Islam as an instrument of political solidarity,
especially among communities not reached by the secular
and intellectual claims of nationalism.
Modernism in Islam has its genuinely religious side too.
In intellectual circles a phase of agnosticism has been fol-
lowed by one of religious revival. There are movements
afoot among young Arabs who believe that there can be
no health in the political state unless it is rooted in the
religious life, no health in the world until its peoples are
drawn into a closer brotherhood of mutual understanding,
toleration and good will. Last year at a congress of world
faiths held in London a paper written by a most distin-
guished Moslem scholar, the rector of Al Azhar Uni-
versity of Cairo, on the subject of 'World Fellowship
through Religion', attracted wide interest. It showed how
much closer in spirit the religions of the world are today
than ever before, deplored that exponents of them should
misuse their energies in attacking one another when their
ends and aims are the same and pleaded for an allied front
to combat the real enemy the evils of the world, and for
[329]
THE ARABS
a common ideal the achievement of good fellowship
among the peoples of the earth.
The bitter legacy inherited by East and West from the
centuries of medieval warfare lies, misrepresentation
and hatred one of the other is happily dwindling. Old
intolerances, old bitternesses are disappearing before the
spread of another spirit now cherished by good men of all
religions, the spirit of peace on earth, good will towards
men.
The Arabs, in their many ways, are feeling the influence
of modernism, their receptiveness varying with their cul-
tural condition; hence educated circles in Syria and Iraq
occupy a position midway between backward Moslem
communities of the Arabian peninsula and advanced Mos-
lem communities of India and Egypt. But it is Egypt whose
influence must tell in the long run, for its Arabic press
occupies a commanding position throughout the Arab
countries, its thinkers and publicists are becoming known
to an ever-widening circle of literate Arabs, its theological,
social and political controversies are echoed in the press
and the diwans of Baghdad, Damascus and Jerusalem.
Egypt, the first of the Arabic-speaking countries to accept
Westernization and adopt the European philosophical
outlook, is preaching modernism to the Arab world.
Thus has the wheel of fate turned full circle. A thou-
sand years ago the Arab was teaching modernism to
Europe. His civilization was then pre-eminent, his influ-
ence of imperial extent. Great warrior though he was, his
sword could clearly not alone have wrought his splendid
achievements. Besides strength of purpose, there must
have been creative genius and qualities of the spirit. Yes-
terday and today pride, honour, love of freedom these
are the strong elements of nobility in his character.
[330]
EPILOGUE
If much of the cultural side of Arab civilization had its
roots in the earlier civilizations of the Arab conquests
some of its great human qualities derived as surely from
the hard school of Arabia herself. Among them generosity
and heroism stand nobly forth. There is no people in the
world more naturally generous than the Arabs. They give
with both hands, they give with all their heart. It is no nig-
gardly, calculating generosity impelled by the hope of
something better in exchange. It springs spontaneously
from a nature that is made that way. Not once but twenty
times during my journeyings in south Arabia I have been
moved to admiration by little acts of humanity among my
Beduin companions. After long thirsty hours in the saddle
I have trotted ahead one or two of them accompanying
me to be first at a longed-for water hole. There they
have watched approvingly as I have eagerly slaked my
thirst, yet would none of them allow a drop of water to
moisten his lips till the rest of his companions an hour's
march behind perhaps came up that they might all drink
together. A crust I have given to one I have noticed that
he saved to share with a companion ; and rarely has it been
possible to pass a tent, however humble, but the owner
has come running out with a greeting on his lips to insist
on our sharing his bowl of milk, his few dates or whatever
else he had, though his supply were inadequate perhaps
for his own wants. You are a stranger, he has never seen
you before, he will never see you again, yet he unstintingly
gives you that of which he has dire need himself.
Impulsive, unmeasured generosity has its counterpart
In another quality of the spirit. The usage of sanctuary
when the desert Arab, without any claims upon him, will
protect with his life the outcast or the weak who has
sought his protection has already been noticed. Driven by
THE ARABS
hunger to raid, he observes in a true sporting spirit the
rules of the game, unless a blood feud absolves him. To
shed blood is lawful enough if his adversary is unyielding,
but let him heed in time and he will be allowed to retain
a camel, be given rations and so return to his tribe, free
to prepare a counter raid.
Proud of his dominion within his horizons, the Arab
will allow none to trespass without his permission or that
of his kindred. On many occasions the writer, engaged in
camel journeys through the unknown south Arabian bor-
derlands, has been obliged to draw rein by a hail of bullets,
some of them passing uncomfortably close carrying the
haughty, wordless challenge: 'Halt! Who goes there?'
But if the Arab brooks no uninvited invasion of his do-
mains and is roused by it to immediate militancy, he is no
unchivalrous exploiter in cold blood. True the short list
of European travellers is not free from victims ; those who
met with violent ends include Palmer, a professor of
Arabic at Cambridge, Seetzen, a Swedish botanist of
European reputation, and Huber, a French-Alsatian nat-
uralist and archaeologist the last two professing Mos-
lems. Yet never in the history of Arabian exploration has
a European been held up to ransom. To be shot in the
raid, that is legitimate ; the unwanted intruder, too, who
comes ignorantly without safe-conduct, or the suspected
spy, must take the consequences of his ill-mannered igno-
rance or his bad luck, but methods such as those of the
gangster in America or the bandit in China are foreign
to the sporting legitimacies of the warlike Beduin.
In my fifty-eight days crossing of Rub' al Khali, Arabia's
great southern sandy waste, I, the first European to pene-
trate its depths, moving with the utmost secrecy possible,
used as my saddle bags by day and my pillows by night
[332]
EPILOGUE
gunny bags stuffed with many thousand-dollar pieces ; my
companions, fully aware of it, were hungry, penniless
Beduin whom I had never seen before and who could not
be called to account by any authority for my life the life
of a self-confessed Christian. Their honourable conduct
and their personal loyalty are memories I shall always
gratefully cherish. The Arabian custom of going forth to
battle with a woman's name as a war cry, the time-
honoured practise of being led into action by a girl mounted
on camel back the latter no longer possible since the in-
troduction of firearms speak alike of the gallant in their
attitude of mind. Chivalry was ever the quality exalted in
their heroes, and chivalry, be it not forgotten, found its
way into general European practice during the Arab
period first by way of Spanish, then of French contacts.
Had the Arabs, then, no other claims upon us and their
claims, as history shows, are both many and significant
their contributions to chivalry alone would entitle them to
a proud name among the nations.
[333]
Appendix
RACIAL ORIGINS OF THE ARABS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The works hereunder are those to which I am specially indebted.
The student will find fuller references in the works quoted. In-
valuable to him also is the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Luaac) in process
now of publication by instalments.
1 DE LACY O'LEARY: Arabia before Muhammad. Kegan
Paul, 1927.
2 D. S. MARGOLIOUTH : The Relations between Arabs and Is-
raelites prior to the Rise of Islam. (The Schweich Lec-
tures.) Oxford University Press, 1931.
8 D. S. MARGOLIOUTH: Mohammed. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1906.
* MAULANA MUHAMMAD ALI: Muhammad The Prophet.
Lahore, 1924.
5 CARLYXE : Heroes and Hero Worship. Chapman & Hall, 1897.
*~ 7 The Cambridge Medieval History (Vol. II). Cambridge
University Press, 1932.
6 A. A. BEVAN : Mohamet and Islam.
7 C. H. BECKER : Expansion of the Saracens.
8 BUDGETT MEAKIN: The Moors. Sonnenschein, 1901.
9 REUBEN LEVI: The Sociology of Islam (2 vols.). Williams
and Norgate, Vol. I, 1931; Vol. II, 1933-
10 MARMADUKE PICKTHALL : The Cultural Side of Islam. The
Committee of 'Madras Lectures on Islam', 1927.
[347]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
11 GIBBON: Decline and Fall "of the Roman Empire (Vol. V).
Henry G. Bohn, 1854.
12-21 ffa L e g ac y O f Islam. Edited by Sir Thomas Arnold and Al-
fred Guillaume. Oxford University Press, 1931.
12 A. H. CHRISTIE: Islamic Minor Arts and Their Influence
upon European Work.
13 MARTIN S. BRIGGS : Architecture.
14 H. G. FARMER: Music.
15 CARRA DE VAUX : Astronomy and Mathematics*
16 J. H. KRAMERS: Geography and Commerce.
17 MAX MEYERHOF : Science and Medicine.
18 ALFRED GUILLAUME: Philosophy and Theology.
19 J, B. TREND: Spain and Portugal
20 D. DE SANTILLANA: Law and Society.
21 ERNEST BARKER: The Crusades.
22 E. T. RICHMOND: Moslem Architecture, 6231516, Some
Causes and Consequences. Royal Asiatic Society, 1926.
28 D. G. HOGARTH : The Penetration of Arabia. Lawrence and
Bullen, 1904.
24 D. G. HOGARTH : A History of Arabia. Oxford University
Press, 1922.
25 ERNEST BARKER: The Crusades. Encyclopaedia Britannica,
1922.
26 ARNOLD TOYNBEE: The Western Question in Greece and
Turkey. Constable, 1922.
27 H. W. V. TEMPERLEY: England and the Near East the
Crimea. Longmans, 1936.
28 G. P. GOOCH AND H. W. V. TEMPERLEY: British Documents
on the Origin of the War, Vol. X, Part II. H.M.S. Office,
I927-I937-
29 STEPHEN LONGRIGG : Four Centuries of Modern Iraq. Oxford
University Press, 1925.
80 The Palestine Census Report, 1931.
31 H. A. R. GIBB : Whither Islam? Victor Gollancz, 1932.
82 R. A. NICHOLSON: The Idea of Personality in Sufism. Cam-
bridge University Press, 1923.
38 HENRY FIELD: The Arabs of Central Iraq. Field Museum,
Chicago, 1935.
[348]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
34 JUDGE PIERRE CRABITES: Things Muhammad Did for
Women. From the magazine Asia. U.S.A., 1927.
85 BERTRAM THOMAS : Alarms and Excursions in Arabia. Allen
and Unwin, 1931.
56 BERTRAM THOMAS: Arabia Felix. Jonathan Cape, 1932,
87 BERTRAM THOMAS: The Geography and Ethnography of
South Arabia. Not yet published.
[3493
INDEX
INDEX
Abbasids, 86, 123 ff., 155, 170, 173
ff., 198 ff., 211, 229
Abdul Aziz, see Ibn Sa'ud
Abdulla, The Amir, 281, 283, 291,
306
Abdullah ibn Maimun, 200
Abdul Rahman al Mu'awiya, 103,
135
Abraham, The Prophet, 36, 139, 293
Abu Abdullah, 200
Abu Bakr, 36, 67, 69 ff.
Abu Dhabi, 234
Abu Hanifa, 134, see Hanafi School
Abulcasis, 183
Abu'l Fida, 179
Abu'l Wafa, 173, 177
Abu Talib, 35, 38
Abyssinia, 13, 18, 90, 40, 338
Achila, 98
Acre, 212 ff.
Adelard of Bath, 191
Aden, 258, 279
Adnan, 337, 34*
Mlius Gailus, id ff.
Afdal, 204, 208
Afghanistan, 91
Aga Khan, 234
Aghlabids, 103, 199
A'isha, 52 ff., 86
Akkad, 23
Aksum, 19
Al Azhar, 134, 152, 329
Al Battani, 173, 177, 178
Al Biruni, 173, 178, x8x, 184, 190
Al Bitruji, 173, 181
Al Farabi, 165, 173, *77, **4> 187,
190
Al Farghani, 173, 178
Al Ghazali, 173, 183, 189
Al Kindi, 165, 173, 177, 187
Al Khuwarizmi, 173
Al lat, 12
Al Mas'udi, 179
Al Qadir Billah, 133
Al Zarkali, 173
Albania, 265
Alchemy, 184
Alcohol, 57, 60
Aleppo, 76, 154
Alexander the Great, 15 ff.
Alexandria, 82, 143
Algebra, 176
Algeciras, 99
Algeria, see Maghrib
[353]
INDEX
Algorism, 176
Alhambra, 155
Alhazen, 183, 185
AH, The Amir, 285
AH, The Caliph, 36, 67, 85 ff.
Alimony, 128
Allenby, Lord, 284, 285, 293
Alpetragius, see al Bitruji
Alpine Man, 342
America, 287
Amr ibn al As, 50, 8x, 87
Andalusia, 99
Anglo French Declaration, 287
Angora, 218
Antioch, 76, 208, 212 ff.
Apollonius, 177
Arab:
Characteristics, 112, 197, 330 ff.
Chivalry, 135, 331
Civilization, 190
Colonization, 74 ff., 196
Committee, The, 276
Congress, 307
Conquests: Africa, North, 94 ff.,
196; Afghanistan and Trans-
Oxiana, 91 ff., 196; Egypt, 81
ff., 196 ; France, 100 ff. ; Italian,
104 ff.; Mediterranean Is., 104;
Persia, 78 ff., 196; Spain, 98
ff., 196; Syria, 72 ff., 196
Cultural Divisions, in ff., 222 ff.,
267
Egyptian Leaderiship of, 330
Federation, Political, 322 ff.
Generosity, 331
Higher Committee, The, 307
Mariners, 245
Nationalism, 271, 275 ff., 296 ff.,
321 ff.
New Thrones, 291
Patriots Executed, 282 ff.
Revolt, The, 284, 285, 289
Risings : Iraq, 290 ; Palestine, 3 12-
316; Syria, 289
Sea Power, 83 ff., 96, 103, 244 ff.
Slavery, see Slavery
Tolerance, 120, 204
Arabia:
Abyssinian Invasion, 18 ff.
Cultural Divisions, 247 ff.
Egyptian Invasions, 14, 237
Exclusivism, 223, 331 ff.
Livelihood, 237, 240 ff.
Medieval Caliphates, 226
Persian Invasion, 20
Political Divisions, 234, 237 ff.
Population Pressure, Early, 66
Roman Invasion, 16 ff.
Southern Kingdoms, 13, 343
War Subsidies, 285, 292
Arabian Nights, The> 125, 165, 179,
246
Aramaeans, 22, 93
Archimedes, 175
Architecture:
Arch Horseshoe, 150
Building Traditions, 145, 153
Domes, 147 ff.
Domestic, 154 ff.
Mosque Features, 144 ff.
Ornamentation, 145 ff., 150 ff.
Roundnesses, 148 ff., 151 ff.
Saracenic, 156 ff.
Vaulting, 150 ff.
Arin, Cupola of, 180
Aristarchus of Samos, 181
Aristotle, 171, 173, 175, 187
Arithmetic, 176
Aries, 102
Armenia, 203
Armenoid Race, 338, 342
Arnold, Sir Thomas, 348
Arts, The, 141 ff., 156 ff., 252
Arts Club, The, 276
Aryan Race, 338
Arzachel (Al Zarkali), 173
Assyrians, 266, 308
Astarte (Athtar), 12
Astrolabes, 177, 184
Astrology, 184
Astronomy, 180 ff.
Asturias, zoo
Atabegs, 210 ff.
Athtar (Ashtoreth), xa
[354!
INDEX
Avempace (Ibn Bajja), 167
Avenzoar (Ibn Zuhr), 184
Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 173, 184,
189 ff.
Avicebron (Ibn Gabirol), 189
Avicenna (Ibn Sina), 165, 173, 177,
183, 184, 187 ff.
Avignon, 101, 102
Aziz of Egypt, 50, 54
Azure* 159
Baalbek, 76
Babylonians, 18, 143
Bactria, 172
Badr, Battle, 46
Badr al Jumali, 154, 203
Baffin, 256
Baghdad, 155, 156, 173
Bahrain, 234 ff., 259, 279
Baibars, 215, 228
Bakhtishu, 182
Baldwin o Flanders, 213
Balfour Declaration, 286, 297, 307
Balkans, The, 218, 260, 265, 279
Balkh, 92
Bani Hashing 41
Bari, 105
Barker, Prof. Ernest, quoted, 206,
348
Basrah, 79
Becker, C. H., 66, 81, 347
Beduin, 29, 68, 112 ff., 162, 331 ff.
Belkis, Queen, 13 ff.
Berbers, 93 ff., 100, 201
Bethlehem, 214
Bevan, Prof. A. A., 58, 347
Boat Building, 244
Bokhara, 92
Borag, 37, 314
Bordeaux, 101
Botahari Tongue, 343
Briggs, Martin S., quoted, 148, 348
Britain :
Arab Campaigns, 284 ., 289
Arabian Interests, 256, 279 ff.
Mandates, 289 ff., 294 ff.
Buwayhids, 203
Byzantines, 20, 50, 51, 69 ff., 76, 82,
94, 160
Caesaria, 76
Cairo, 82, 153, 201, 213 ff., 219
Calabria, 105
Caliphs of Medina:
Abu Bakr, 36, 67, 69 ff.
AH, 36, 67, 84 ff.
Omar, 67, 74 ff.
Othman, 36, 82 ff.
Caliphs, of Baghdad, see Abbasids;
Cario, see Fatimids; Constan-
tinople, see Ottomans; Damas-
cus, see Umaiyyads; see also
proper names
Camel Raising, 247
Capitation Tax, 77
Capitulations, 276
Caravan Routes: Arabian, 9 ff.,
Asiatic, 160 ff.
Carlyle, 347
Carmathians, 137, 227 ff.
Carpet Weaving, 157
Carthage, 93, 96
Caucusoid Race, 92, 339
Ceramics, 159 ff.
Cervantes, 138
Charlemagne, 101, 161, 205
Chaucer, 166
Chesney, 259
Children, Custody of, 132
Chinese Art, 161
Chingis Khan, 216
Chosroes of Persia Mission, 50
Christianity: Latins and Greeks,
210; North Africa, 94; pre-
Islamic Arabian, 18, 25
Christians Enslaved, 137
Christie, A. H., quoted 141, 149*
159 ff., 348
Civilization, Middle East, HI, 190,
^20, 253, 321
[355]
INDEX
Coffee, 244
Coinage, 113, 198, 34*
Columbus, Christopher, 254, 255
Committee of the Covenant, 276
Committee of Union and Progress,
27X
Compass, The Mariners, 179
Concubinage, 128
Congress of World Faiths, 329 ff.
Conscription, 268
Constantinople, 101, 208, 2x3, 2x9
Copper, 14
Cordova, 99 ff., 137, 191
Corsica, 104
Court Art, 156, 161
Covenant of Peace, 3x0
Cox, Sir Percy, 290
Crabites, Judge Pierre, quoted, 126,
127, 349
Crete, 104
Crusades, The, 154, 204 ff., 253
Ctesiphon, 79
Cyprus, 83, 104, 2x2, 2x8
Cyrenaica, 93
d y Albuquerque, Admiral, 255
Damascening, 158
Damascus, 10, 73, 88, 91, 156
Damietta, 2x4
Dam of Mar'ib, 19, 66
Dante, 180
Dastagird, 70
Date Culture, 44
Day of the Camel, 86
Dead Sea, 298
Decapolis, 143
da Gama, Vasco, 179, 224, 254
de Santillana, D, quoted, 262, 348
Deuteronomy, quoted, 49
de Vaux, Baron Carra, quoted, 173,
176, 182, 348
Dhufar, 244
Dibai, 234
Dinar, 95
Divorce, Moslem, 126 ff., 132 ff.
Dome of the Rock, 146, 153, 3x3
Dowry, The, 128
Dravidians, 339
Dutch Pioneering, 274 ff.
Dynasty:
Abbasid, see Abbaaids
Aghlabid, 103, 199
Fatimid, see Caliphs of Cairo
Mamlukes, 153, 2x4, 219
Umaiyyad, Spain, 103, 135
Umaiyyad, Syria, see Umaiyyads
Earthenware, 160
East India Company, 256 ff.
East Indies, 92
Edessa, 208
Edom, 24, 306
Edward, Prince Crusader, 217
Egypt: 92, 120, 196, 199, 252, 258,
330; Arab Conquest of, 81 ff.,
196
Egyptian Invasions of Arabia, 14,
237
Enamelling on glass, 158
Euclid, 175
Eunuchs, 134
Europeanization, 327
Exorcism Cult, 6
Faisal, The Amir (King), 283, 284,
291, 292, 297
Fakirs, 54
False Prophets, 68
Farmer, Dr, H. G., quoted, 165,
348
Fast of Ramadhan, 6x
Fatima, 54
Fatimids, 183, 199 ff., 208 ff., 228
Federation, Arab Political, 322
Federation of Jewish Labour, 309
Ferenghi, 209
Fez, 152
Field, Henry, 342, 348
Fine Arts, 142
[356]
INDEX
France: Arab Invasion of, 100 ff.
Arab Interests, 260, 278
Mandate (Syria), 285, 287,
289 ff.
Frankincense, 8, 244 ff.
Franks, 209
Frederick II of Sicily, 214
French Pioneering, 257
Fustat, 82, 143, 201
Galen, 172, 173, *75
Garonne, loz
Gaul, see France
Gaza, 74, **5 *
Genoese, 253
Geography, 178
Georgia, 203
Germany, 260, 261, 278 ff.
Gharraf, 270
Ghassan, 20 ff.
Gibb, Prof. H. A. R., quoted, 26$,
348
Gibbon, quoted, 86, 348
Gibraltar, 99
Giraldo Tower, Seville, 156
Gladstone, 260
Glass Ware, 159
Gooch, Dr. G. P., 281, 348
Granada, 155
Grand Mufti, 307
Greeks, see Byzantines, 10, 15, 24,
169 ff.
Greek Sciences, The, 168 ff.
Gudea, 15
Guilds, Craftsmen's, 162
Guillaume, Alfred, quoted, 186-191,
34?
H
Hadhramaut, 9, 13
Hadrian, Emperor, 24
Hagar, 29
Haifa, 298
Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, 91, 123
Hakim, Caliph, 202, 206
Hamad an, 80
Hamitic Race, 337 ff,
Han aft School, 123, 134, 230 ff,
Hanbali School, 123, 230 ff.
Hanifs, 30
Harem System, 134, 155
Hasrusi Tongue, 343
Harun al Rashid, 125, x6x, 205
Hasa, 235, 259
Hassan, The Martyr, 88
Hebrew, 23, 311 ff.
Heliopolis, 81
Hell, 39
Hellenism in pre-Islamic Arabia,
84 ff.
Heraclius, Emperor, 76
Heraldry, 159 ff.
Herzl, Dr., 278
Hijaz, 240, 275
Hijra, 43
Himparites, 18, 342 ff.
Hira, 20 ff., 71, 171
Hittites, 338
Hogarth, Dr. D. G., quoted* 81, 221,
256, 348
Holy Cities, 227, 280, 291
Holy War, 280
Hope Simpson, Sir John, 303, 3x5
Hormuz, 255
Horse Raising, 247
House of Wisdom, 175
Hubal, 30
Huber, 332
Hulagu, 2x6
Hunain ibn Ishaq, 173, 175, 182
Husain the Martyr, 88 ff.
Husain, Sharif, see Sharif Husain
Hyksos, 66
Ibadhism, 229
Ibn Abdul Wahhab, 236
Ibn al Arabi, 189
Ibn Batuta, 179, 242
Ibn Gabirol, see Avicebron
Ibn Jama'ah, 262
[357]
INDEX
Ibn Jubair, 207
Ibn Majid, 179
Ibn Musarra, 189
Ibn Rashid, 235 ff.
Ibn Rushd, see Averroes
Ibn Sa'ud, 226, 235 ff,, 238 ff., 250,
259, 291 ff.
Ibn Sina, see Avicenna
Ibn Tulun, 199
Ice Age, 340
Iconoclasm, 51, 142
Idrisi, 179
Ifrikiya, 93
Ikh<wan f 239
Imams, Shi' a, 90 ff.
Immigration, see Palestine
India, 92, 258, 259, 275, 279 ff.
Indian Army, 280, 285
Industrialization, 326
Infanticide, 55
Inscriptions, Ancient Southern, 10,
12 ff., 343
Iraq:
Arab: Conquest of, 78 ff., 196
Government, 323
British Conquest, 289
Insurrection, 289
Mandate, 290
Minorities, 324, 325
Turkish Administration! 266 ff.,
*7$
Ishaq ibn Hunain, 173
Islam:
Cardinal Tenets, 35, 60
and Christianity, 35, 58 ff., 204
ff-i 330
Definition, 34
Form of Worship, 61 ff.
Spread of, 92
Ismali Sect, 234
Ispahan, 80
Italy, 162, 279, 287
Jabal Tariq (Gibraltar), 99
Jaffa Riots, 315
Jahiliya, 24
Janaba, 234
Japan, 246
Japheth, 337
Jauhar the Sicilian, 201
Java, 92, 245
Jerusalem, 37, 74, 7*> 87, i43 *53
211 ff.
Jesus, Qur'anic Teachings, 35, 58 ff.
Jewish Nationalism, 278, 333
Jews, see Palestine
Jews:
Arabia penetrated early, 18, 34 ff.
Arabian Persecution, 49
Contemporary Persecution, 295,
305, 317
North African Medieval, 94
Origin, 337
Spanish Persecution, 96 ff.
Under Roman Law, 97
Jihad, 280
Jinn, 39, 60, 243
John VIII, Pope, 105
John X, Pope, 105
Jokhtan, 337
Josephus, 13
Judaea, 74
Judaism, pre-Islamic in Arabia, 18
Judge, see Qadhis
Jundeshapur, 171, 173-175
K
Ka'ba, 31, 227
Kahina, 95
Kamal al Din, 185
Keith, Sir Arthur, 339 ff., 349
Khadija, 31
Khalid ibn al Walid, 50, 68, 73 ff,
Khalifa or Caliph, definition, 67
Khawarij, 87, 230
Khorasan, 90 ff., 172
Khuzistan, 80
Kilboga, 216
King's Council Spain, 97
Kitchener, 280 ff.
[358]
INDEX
Kramers, J. H., quoted, 178, 180,
34
Krogman, W. M., 339 ff., 349
Kufa, 79, 87-88, 123, 143
Kurds, 263
Kuwait, 234, 259, 261
Labour Party, Palestine, 309
Lagash, 15, 270
Lahej, 234
Lakhmids, 21
Latin Kingdom, The, 209 ff.
Latin Race, The, 338
Law, Administration, Medieval,
121 ff.
Law: of Contract^ 122; of Divorce,
126 ff., of Evidence, 121, 122;
Holy, ii 6 ff., 229 ff., 263 ; Mer-
cantile, 122; Turkish, 266 ff.,
270
Lawrence, T. E., 222, 223, 284, 285,
289
League of Nations, 288, 290 ff., 314
Lebanon, 278
Legitimism, 228
Lenin, 139
Leo III, 101
Levi, Dr. Reuben, quoted, 39, 40,
130 ff., 232, 347
Liberalism, 276
Liddell Hart, Capt. B. H., 284, 285
Lihyani, 22
Lisbon, 210
Longrigg, Stephen, 348
Lorimer, Mrs. D. L. R., VI
Luristan, 157-158
Lustre Ware, 160
Lycian Coast, Battle, 8$
Lynch, 259
M
Machicolation, 154
MacMahon, Sir Henry, 283
Mada'in, 79
Madagascar, 246
Madarsas, 152
Madhifs, 154
Magan, Land of, 15
Maghrib, 94 ff., 102, 197
Mahdi, The, 90, 200
Mahmood Zada, 61 ff.
Mahmud of Ghazna, 92
Mahra, 243, 343
Malacca, 245
Maliki School, 123, 231 ff.
Malta, 104
Mamlukes, The, 153, 214 ff., 219
Ma'mun, Caliph, 170, 174, 181, 186
Manahil, 234
Mandate:
Iraq, 290
Palestine, 289, 311
Syria, 289 ff.
System Defined, 289, 323
Mansur, Caliph, 170
Maqrizi, 201 ff.
Marakkesh, 152
Margoliouth, Prof. D. S., quoted, 23,
37, 347
Mar'ib (Mariaba), 10, 19, 66
Marriage Law and Procedure,
126 ff
Martel, Charles, 101
Mary the Copt, 54
Massacres: Arab, 265, 308; Turk-
ish, 265, 308
Mas'udi, 179
Meakin, Budget, 347
Mecca, 29, 224
Medical Science, 171, 182 ff.
Medina, 43, 74, 226
Mediterranean: Islands, 104; Race,
333 ; Sea Command, 96, 207
Mesopotamia, 78 ; see Iraq
Mesopotamian Exped. Force, 285,
289
Metal work, 158
Meyerhof, Dr. Max, qu oted> 185, 348
Midhat Pasha, 268
Mihrabs, 144
Milton, quoted, 170
[359]
INDEX
Minaeans, 13, 343
Minarets, 14.3 ff., 148 ff.
Minor Arts, 151, 156 ff., 252 ff.
Minorities, 264 ff., 324 ff.
Mi2rachi Party, 310
Moab, 306
Mocha, 243
Modernism, 327 ff.
Mongol Invasion, 155, 215 ff., 253
Mongoloid Race, 92, 339
Monophysites, 171
Monotheism, 35
Montagu, Edwin, 30$
Moors, 103, 106, 137
Moriscos, 106
Morley, John, 308
Morocco, see Maghrib
Morris Dancers, 166
Moslem Flight, Abyssinia, 40
Moslem Supreme Council, 307
Mosque Features, 144 ff.
Mosque: of AH, Najaf, 90; Great
of Damascus, 144, 146; Hu-
sain Kerbela, 90; Omar, see
Dome of the Rock; School, 152;
Tomb, 152; Uqba, Quairawan,
146
Mosul Minor Arts, 158
Mu'awiya, Governor (Caliph), 83,
85 ff.
Muhammad, see Prophet
Muhammad Ali (author), quoted)
46, 47, 49, 347
Muhammad Ali, Governor, 237 ff.
Muhammadanism, 34; see Islam
Muharram, 90
Mu'izz, Caliph, 201 ff.
Musa ibn Nusair, 98 ff.
Musailima, 69
Muscat^ 234, 255, 279
Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner,
165
Music, 162 ff.
Musical Instruments, 164; Litera-
ture, 167 ff.
Musta'sim, Caliph, 216
Muta, Battle, 51
Muta, Marriage, 131
Mutawakkil, Caliph, 175
Mu'tazilite, 186, 188
Myrrh, 244
Mysticism, 165, 189 ff.
N
Nabataeans, 12
Nafisat al Urn, 135
Nakhla Raid, 45
Napoleon, 235, 278
Nar bonne, zoo, 102
Nasir al Din, 173
Nasrani, 119
National Home, Jewish, 285, 295
Nationalism, 254, 262, 264 ff., 271,
281, 294 ff., 308, 315, 324
Nearchus, 15
Negus, Mission to, 50
Nejd, 259
Nestorian Church, 171, 2x6
New Empire, The, 213
New Learning (Arab Period),
172 ff.
Nicholson, Prof. R. A., 165, 348
Nihavand, 80
Noah, 337
Normans, 105
Nubia, 13
Numerals, 176
Nur al Din, 211
Observatory, Baghdad, 181
Oil, 298, 326 ff.
O'Leary, Dr. De Lacy, quoted, 10,
26, 347
Oman:
Government, 227, 235
Invades Persia, 80
Invaded by Persia, 20
Omar, Caliph, see Caliph Omar
Omar II, Caliph, 78, 119
Omar Khayyam, 173, 176
Ophir, 244
[360]
INDEX
Optics, 183 fL
Osman, Sultan, 218
Othman, Caliph) see Caliph Othman
Ottomans, see Turks
Oxus, 92
Pagan Cults, 6
Palermo, 104
Palestine: 196, 275, 286 ff., 293 fL,
322
Administration, 335
Agriculture, 301
Arab Conquest, 196
British Conquest, 289
Casualties, War, 289
Census Figures, 300, 304
Commerce, 302
Immigration, Jewish, 297, 300 ff.>
305, 315
Industrialization, 298
Land Purchase, Jewish, 3x5
Mandate, 294
National Arab Strike, 3x5
Political Parties, 306-11
Population, 294, 302
Prosperity, 316
Riots, 312 fL, 3x5, 316
Size, 294
Social Classes, 302
Pallentaria, 104
Palmer, Professor, 332
Palmyra, xo, 12, 21
Paradise, 38, 180
Parliamentary Government, 264,
321, 325
Passion Play, 90
Peace Conference, 296, 297
Pearl Fisheries, 242 fL
People of the Book, 119
Persepolis, 142
Persia :
Arab Conquest of, 78 fL, 196
Arts, 1 60 fL, 252
Ascendancy in Caliphate, 125, 237
Greek Wars, 69 ff.
Invasion of Arabia, 19, 20
and Islam, 80
Persian Gulf, 15 ff., 255 ff., 297
Persians, 69 ff., X20, 155, 156
Petra, xo
Philby, H. St. J. B., 283
Philosophy, 171, 186 ff., 253
Phoenicians, 95
Pickthall, Marmaduke, quoted, 114,
347
Pilgrim of Bordeaux, 312
Pilgrim Railway, 222, 260
Pilgrimage, Mecca and Medina,
30 ff., 52 ff., 146, 242
Pilgrimage of ShVs, 90
Plato, 175
Plotinus, 187
Pluvial Period, 340
Poitiers, Battle, xox
Popes and Saracens, 105, 183; see
Crusades
Population Pressure, Arabia, 66
Portugal, 2i x, 255 ff.
Potash, 298
Pottery, 159 ff.
Prayer, Moslem, 60 ff.
Prefect of Kufa, 123
Prison Administration, 220
Prophet, The:
Birth, 27
Boyhood, 30
Character, 32, 53
Domestic Life, 31, 53 ff.
Flight to Yathrib, 42
Humanity, 27
Investment of Mecca, 51
and Jews, 49
and Slavery, 56, 135, 250
Summons to Foreign Rulers, 50
Syrian Expedition, 52
Teachings, 35, 55
Visions and Revelations, 33, 57
Visit to Heavens, 37
Psychology, Tribal, 112, 271
Ptolemies, 16
Ptolemy, 175
Ptolemy Sutcr, 178
[361]
INDEX
Pulpits, 145
Punt, Land of, 14
Purffatorio, 180
Puritanism, 55, 14*, *4
167, 229, 236 ff.
Pythagorean Scale, 163
Q ad his, i2i
Qadisiya, 79
Qahira, see Cairo
Qahtan, 337, 341
Qairawan, 95, 102
Qara Mountains, 19, 340
Qasbah of Rabat, 156
Qatabanis, 13
Qatada, 228
Qatar, 234, 259
Quraish, 29
Qur'an, 58-62; and Christianity,
58 ff.; and Old Testament, 59
Oust a ibn Luqa, 173
Rabat, 156
Racial Origins, 337 ff.
Rahmanism, 25
Railways, 257, 259 ff.
Ramadhan, 61
Rayy, 159
Reforms, Turkish, 254, 268
Religion and Modernism, 328 ff.
Religious Cults, p re-Islam, 6 ff., zo
Renaissance, 107, 254
Restrictive Ordinances, 77, 119
Revisionist Party, 309
Revolt, The Arab, 284, 285, 289
Rhazes, 182, 184, 190
Rhodes, Island of, 104
Rhone, 102
Richard Cceur de Lion, 212 ff.
Richmond, T. B., quoted, 150, 153,
201, 202, 211 ff., 314, 348
Riyadh, 239
Robertus Augustus, 191
Roderick, 98
Roman Invasion of: Arabia, 316 ff.;
No. Africa, 94
Roman Law, 97
Rome, 105
Rothschild, Lord, 286
Rub'al Khali, 10, 332
Rum, 203
Russia, 261
Rustera, 79
Rutenberg Concession, 298
Sa'ar, 234
Sab a, 10, 13
Sabaeans, 12, 13, 343
Sacred Pavement, 312
Sa'id ibn Husain, 200
Saladin, 154, 211 ff.
Salado, 99
Samaria, 74
Samarkand, 92, 137
Samarra, 137, 175
Samh, 100
Sana, 10
Sanctuary Usage, 331
Saracenic Architecture, see Archi-
tecture
Saracenic Expansion, see Arab Con-
quests
Saracens, 107
Sardinia, 104
Sargent's El Jaleo, 165
Sassanians, 143, 155
Sa'udi Arabia, 161, 231, 234, 236 ff.,
259, 291
Schools of Translation, 171, 174 ff.,
188, 191
Sciences, The, 182 ff., 252
Sea Crusades, 213 ff.
Sea Power, 83 ff., 96, 104, 207
Sectarianism, 229 ff.
Security, Armed, 326
Seetzen, 332
Seistan, 91
[362]
INDEX
Seleucia, 79, 82
Selim the Grim, 219, 229
Seljuqs, 203 ff.
Semitism, 22, 337
Sennacherib, 14
Seventies, 234
Seville, 100, 156, 166, 191
Shafi'i School, 123, 231 ff.
Shahari Tongue, 343
Shamanism, 216
Shams, Goddess, 12
Shari'a, see Law, Holy
Sharif, Grand, see Sharif Husain
Sharif Husain, 235, 240, 281 ff.,
291, 296
Sharif ate of Mecca, 235
Shark Fisheries, 244
Sheba, Queen of, 13
Shem, 337
Shi' a Caliphate of Egypt, see
Fatimids
Shi'ism, 80, 90 ff., 121, 227, 229 ff.,
232
Ships and Shipping, 83 ff., 244 ff.,
257 .
Sicily, 103, 105, 162
Siffin, 86
Silk, 161
Sinai, 14
Sind, 92, 246
Sindbad the Sailor, 235, 246
Skyscrapers, 246
Slavery, 57, 98, 135 ff., 139* ^48 ff.
Slavonic Peoples, 137
Small Pox, 182
Smyrna, 218
Solomon's Temple, 312
Spain:
Jewish Persecution, 96 ff.
Moslem Civilization, 172, 183,
191
Saracenic Conquest, 98 ff., 196 ff.
Spices, 8, 243
St. John Baptist Church (Gt
Mosque, Damascus), 144, 146
St. Louis's Crusade, 215 fL
St. Paul's, Rome, 215 ff.
St. Peter's, Rome, 215
St. Thomas Aquinas, 189 ff.
Strabo, 17
Sudan, 92
Suez Canal, 258
Sukaina, 135
Sultans of Constantinople, see Con-
stantinople
Sum-ma of Aquinas, 190
Sunnism, 121, 123, 229 ff.
Surgery, 183
Susa, 142
Sykes-Picot Agreement, 286
Syllaeus, 17
Syria :
Arab Conquest, 73 ff.
British Conquest, 288
Caliphate, 87 ff.
French Invasion, 278, 289
French Mandate, 289 ff.
Mongol Invasion, 215 ff.
Turkish Invasion, 275 ff.
See also Crusades, 204 ff.
Syriac, 22
Taif, 41
Tairaa, 10
Taj Mahal, 156
Talio, 116
Tamerlane, 2x8
Tangier, 95 ff.
Tariq, Conqueror of Spain, 99 ff. t
196
Tartars, 218
Taurus Mountains, 76
Telegraphs, First, 257
Temperley, Prof. H. W. V., 264,
281, 348
Temple of Herod, see Solomon's
Temple
Thabit ibn Qurra, 173, 177, x$3
Theocracy, 115 ff., 120
Theodorus, 73
Thrones, New Arab, 291
Thuraiyya (Pleiades), 12
[363]
INDEX
Tin, 245
Toledo, 99 ff., 158, 191
Toulouse, 100
Tours, Battle of, 101
Toynbee, Arnold, quoted, 168, 280,
3*5, 34
Trade Pioneer, 257
Traditions:
Building, 145, 152
Prophet's, see Sunnism, 121
of Rule, 262 ff.
Translations, Schools of, 171, 174 ff.,
189, 191
Trans-Jordan, 73, 291, 306
Trans-Oxiana, 172
Trench, Battle of, 48 ff.
Trend, J. B., quoted, 191, 196, 348
Trigonometry, 177
Tripoli (Africa), 93, 279
Tripoli (Syria), 211 ff., 217
Troubadours, 166
Tulaiha, 68
Tunisia, 93 ff., 103, 196 ff.
Turcomans, 13.7
Turkestan, 172
Turks:
Buwayhid, 203
Modern, 258, 263, 266 ft, 275 ff.,
279, 281, 325
Ottoman, Early, 218, 229
Seljuq, 203 ff.
Turquoises, 14
Tyre, 212 ff.
Ubaidallah the Mahdi, 200
Uhud, Battle, 47
Umaiyyad, Dynasty, 86, 87, 91,
93 ff., 123 ff., 143 ff., 172, 197 ff.
Umm Salma, 135
Unbeliever's Tax, 77
United States, see America
Uqba, 95
Ussher, Bishop, 337
Uzza, 12
Vandals, 95
Vasco da Gama, 179, 224, 254
Vaulting, 150
Veiling (Women), 132
Venetians, 137, 218, 253
Venice, 162
Visigoths, Spanish, 99 ff.
W
Wagwag, 246
Wahhabism, 160, 231, 236 ff.
Wailing Wall, 312
War, The Great, 239, 275 ff.
Wazir, 125
Wedding Ceremony, 130
Weizmann, Dr., 286, 296
Western Christendom, 191, 192,
253 ff. f
Westernization of Arab countries,
271, 321 ff.
WHiam IV of England, 258
Wilson, Lieut-Col. Sir Arnold, 290
Wilson, President, 287
Woman's Status, Arab, 126 ff.,
132 ff., 139
Wren, Christopher, 148
Yaqut, 179
Yarmuk, Battle, 75
Yathrib (Medina), 14, 24, 41 ff.
Yemen: Ancient, 20; Medieval, 277,
229, 234 ff.; Modern, 235, 275
Yezdegird, Emperor, 79 ff.
Yezid, Caliph, 88 ff.
Zaidism, 229
Zangi, Atabeg, 210
Zanzibar, 92, 235
Zem Zem, 29
Zionism, 278, 286, 294 ff.
Zoroastrianism, 18, 129
Zubaida, 135
[364]